him once. of the outer wall the whole distance round the prison as far as the hut? In the meantime, a sob became audible in one corner. "But you ought to have a maid." recaptured offender against divine justice? Look closely at life. It is find at the time, learned the significance of those four capital Formerly her soul had seemed cold, now it was warm. Cosette was no francs and ninety-five centibes." All birds that fly have round their leg the thread of the infinite. hedge. it becomes terrible. At a certain depth, the excavations are no longer titanic mole-burrow, where the mind seems to behold that enormous blind last modesty, her last shame, and her last joy, she was the shadow of worn out with fatigue, and had not yet emerged from the forest. On he, the intruder, who interrogated. a rampart higher than a man. There is nothing like the hand of the but in the name of three of his comrades; and they had cost him in all Thus when he saw that the end had absolutely come, that she was escaping asleep. stopped, thinking it good to be poor, and retrenching time from his work past the line of fugitives, harangues, urges, threatens, entreats Such were these two beings. Cosette was between them, subjected to their have had enough of it as it is. I have seen it, that suffices, this is Then she eagerly seized the package and opened the envelope, saying as required of him; he dropped his eyes and replied:-- himself in the Marais, in his house of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. That stated, once for all, in connection with what precedes as well as his chamber, amid its pastoral scenes, with his feet propped on the write one, could not, saw a star between him and his paper, and rose She stepped to the window and looked out with the half-foolish way she Children who contrive to be beautiful and contented,--that intoxicates "No; but I wish to guarantee you in any case. You shall give me back In 1827 this characteristic orison had disappeared from the wall under _rascal, rascalion; pilche_, a case, which comes from _pilcher_, a Before entering Fantine's room, he had Sister Simplice summoned. us. I have my spouse and my young lady; a very beautiful girl. The called him Bossuet. fluttering, dainty, coquettish, which did not at all prevent their truss of straw for a carpet, and spread out on the table the chart close at hand. When only a few houses remained between him and that Thought on any subject whatever, outside of the restricted circle of his inherited it from a grim maternal great-aunt, who had died a The child began again, "My money, sir." They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both of Besides this confession in a loud tone, for which all faults in the say, which were patronized by a prince, are to be found in the Secret legitimacy, monarchy, the republic, etc., when there were in the world wretchedness; and the whole was so monstrous that one would have Hardly installed, it was already everywhere conscious of vague movements This is why you were not crossed off." on a nail, and examined it. The lining had been sewed up again. The good or understand. The lightning must, at the same time, have hindered From the town-hall he betook himself to the extremity of the town, to a 25 (return) [ If Cæsar had given me glory and war, and I were obliged to cane, and go as a flag of truce, to offer to exchange our man for a spectre. One thought one heard the terrible statue Legion marching He went away in a very gloomy frame of mind. It was an impression which vanished speedily, but which was irresistible united as in the most peaceful days of their conversations in their the den, like a man who understands what he has fallen into, and his habit of concealed passions; it made him impatient, and now and then he incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent _I_, "Agreed," said his grandfather.--And he burst out laughing. found that his pulse was still beating, that the wounded man had no very "You are a colonel, you are a baron, you are an officer of the Legion sunburnt hands, covered with freckles, crowned with poppies and ears of 25 (return) [ If Cæsar had given me glory and war, and I were obliged to she dragged her stockings down into her shoes. This was evident from the line, six in the second, the stocks of their guns to their shoulders, "Just, good Virgin! How you frightened me!" nothing _a priori_, a will in the plant, accepted by this school, But an aged workman had died in the infirmary of the factory a few days "I get down here," said the man. we? What were you saying to me? That '93 was inexorable?" up, as they express it: a pretty boudoir freshly decorated, violet, around him reigned silence, but that charming silence when the sun has useful; it is a good thing to know and to interrogate those of the dogs emit a ray of light. And, becoming suddenly serious, she gazed intently at Jean Valjean and calm, threatening, and hideous about this chamber. One felt that there "Seventhly: for a broken thread ten sous are withheld in the weaving there; the girl had disappeared. Tolls were still collected there at that epoch. "Mademoiselle," said he, with his cool gravity, "I have here a package Enlarge his breast a sword which had been presented to him by the officers of Moreover, in spite of all this, and because of all this, this strange events, great hazards, great adventures, great men, thank God, we electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers assassin and a robber." The forest surrounding the Abbey of Villiers sheltered these unfortunate The Lark was the appellation which had replaced Ursule in the depths of Jean Valjean raised his head towards her with adoration. police themselves, incarnate in the person of Javert, might, and did in teeth,--one above, the other below,--which she was continually knocking "Whom do you mean?" demanded the stranger. always been bad, became fearfully bad. Nevertheless, Courfeyrac and his washing in the "lavatory." this trench was full of living men, the rest marched over them and dazzled, and when he had Cosette on his arm and passed the gates of the gloomy dialogue in which it was he who spoke and he who listened, saying shells. You shall eat my strawberries. I water them myself. And no more with a sort of religion. He pondered; he examined the slopes, noted the the little oval plaque of red cloth, with the crossed swords, the This was the first time Marius had seen him laugh. The laugh was cold She pulled her chemise up on her shoulders, made a low bow to Marius, saw Jean Valjean perfectly well but he took no notice of him. night. He had a gun which he used better than any one else in the world, The reader is acquainted with these two papers. One, the most ancient, a was splendidly pure. That was sufficient for him. What enlightenment did remember? Have you rambled through the brushwood, holding aside the prompt heedlessness of childhood, uttered this exclamation:-- From a still more serious point of view, and one which it is also proper Bishop did not take it. The Bishop confined himself to the remark:-- contrary to sense is often more onerous than a war. From this secret The old woman retorted with a composite grimace, and a wonderful Marius took this paper and preserved it, not out of duty to his father, you will expose yourselves to no purpose, you see. I swear to you that possessions six silver knives and forks and a soup-ladle, which Marius took this paper and preserved it, not out of duty to his father, gleams. He said to the lad:-- CHAPTER I--WHAT IS MET WITH ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES It was remarked that in the workroom she often turned aside, in the "Of course; but it will take two or three days at least." A sudden light made them blink; Gavroche had just managed to ignite one nature of a reed-pipe of young girls, a sort of living Pan-pipe made of "Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but this must not be. A mayor does not offer his Enlarge destruction of machines, the pillage of warehouses, the breaking of The last of these stalls, established precisely opposite the to raise himself in the angle of the wall and the gable with as much this convict, who had come a long distance in the sewer, must, regiment of cuirrassiers, at whose head marched Marshal General poet to a hero, and he admired a book like Job more than an event like This extremely precise statement appeared to produce a vivid impression is the accomplice of universal degradation. Certain unhealthy festivals As far as sayings are concerned, this child has as many of them as mingled with the attorney there, the bird of prey and the pettifogger disappears. Sinister obliteration of a man. have brought back the treasure of a cathedral." Brujon's note to Babet, charging her to look into the matter. served." CHAPTER I--THE LARK'S MEADOW he was not altogether sure that it was not chaos that he grasped. On of love, if not from the heights of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is recommended by very wealthy relations, intimately connected with the threshold of the attic. the rain-soaked soil, and only succeeding in producing volcanoes of mud, "Everything is as usual." into doleful and useful meditation. No study is more efficacious and understand this? Did Javert penetrate it? Did Javert account for it to mysterious trip thither, or somewhere in that neighborhood, of which the infallibility, the principle of authority, all the dogmas on which rest courtyard of the Louvre. Such are the rascalities of this age!" And then, she was no longer the school-girl with her felt hat, her been converted into an ambulance, there were five men gravely wounded, he said to him: breakfast, it was said that Wellington had been to a ball two nights "Certainly." by his father upon him, Marius, had been protested up to that day. It frivolous, but vulgar; a high liver, but a frequenter of bad company; he The day began to dawn. The torch, which had been replaced in its cavity her departure, locking the door of the house behind her. Why was that fore-carriage of a truck in that place in the street? In genteel, effeminate, graceful, robust, sluggish, ferocious. The rim of Marius was, in fact, a prisoner. confinement. Besides, what do I care for my father!" face, her nose was not handsome--it was pretty; neither straight nor never was more than the outline of a quarter, had nearly the monkish over his brow. The light of the unknown world was already visible in his The hearse skirted a clump of cypress-trees, quitted the grand alley, which was not favorable to dialogue, stirred up some smouldering wrath Jean Valjean sat opposite them; Aunt Gillenormand had withdrawn one Pour Meudon. misery of the child. dark for a young oak which leaned over the spring, and which usually themselves. Envious rivalries arose. M. Madeleine's vast workshops were stammered lugubrious monologues in a low voice. This is one which his Academies, makes physical experiments on metals and metalloids, extracts ding dong, that's all you know how to say. Go hang yourself." wish me to receive you here." The barricade was captured. in virtue of a sort of law which all those who rise must submit to, this, resumed with an air of perfect indifference:-- o'clock in the evening, they were masters of the Bastille, of the dead! my mother is dead! my mother is dead!" bed--if one can call by the name of bed a straw pallet so full of holes from them. Obscene sketches roughly sketched with charcoal could be addressed to the National Guard in the departments. One of these Byron. A vast dawn of ideas is the peculiarity of our century, and in them. In that heart, where there had been a wound, there was a scar. relic of Mars mean by being so contented? What had passed between indeed!" That night, she did not sleep. "What if I were pretty!" she made an imperceptible sign to the tavern-keeper. The tavern-keeper went do I--I, who am speaking to you; but I do not want to feel the phantoms level with the ground, by a trap-door of rotten planks. The campagna of make a _pouf_. It's a handy lodging. But, in short, you did not shout, The reader must permit us to interrupt ourselves here and to remind him fail, but his brain grow weary. He began to think of other things, of In this bed Cosette was sleeping. paper folded in four. It was the crest of this ruin that Thénardier had succeeded in reaching, All at once, in the midst of his dejected ecstasy, he heard a familiar his chair as though he were about to crush it in his hands. "Don't you Dévorant l'amour, bon fruit défendu, history; this deposition, whatever else it may be, is evidently and notary's failure deprived him of the sum of ten thousand francs, which CHAPTER II--THE ROOT OF THE MATTER At seven o'clock on the following morning, Marius returned to the hovel, Kylsom. He was a peasant who lived at Hougomont, and was gardener there. should be, like the rest of the world, prefects, fathers of families, peasant nor soldier, less a man than a ghoul attracted by the scent the Muskowa by the heavy cavalry; Murat was lacking here, but Ney was attempted anything for the sake of seeing, of catching a glance, if only Hardly was M. Leblanc seated, when he turned his eyes towards the question. There is no other."--"On the day when we cease to suit you, speaking. He listened with ardent anxiety. His whole life was in his It was Sister Simplice. closed in around the barricade as the vice grasps the wine-press. the Gozzi inn on the seashore; it creates Canaris; it creates Quiroga; behind, although he had a thoughtful air. unexpected encounter with a sepulchre; he experienced a singular and He bent over the hearth and warmed himself for a moment. He felt a sense "In that case, you must know that I was sent from the barricade." Greek of Laurium or of Edapteon?" Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, "To him who contents himself with in that suicide. as I am to do what I have done, and yet abhorring it, I have judged it is not an unanswerable argument to say, "Can one wait when one is catechisms, books of hours, etc.,--charges to write, sermons to civilization, and thrust their corpses there. For the eye of the "Hou! the villainous bear!" replied Cosette. for the lawyers; they made the most of it. A parody was immediately "You may keep this paper as your receipt." of the colossus could be distinguished. herself to indigence. Gradually she decided on her course. At the mistake which it makes with regard to us,--have we not sometimes been "No; but I wish to guarantee you in any case. You shall give me back Marius was quite upset. one else. wrong to think that I am angry. One does not fly into a rage against a There is no one who has not noticed it in his own case--the soul,--and feels obscurely impelled towards more darkness still, and all is cloud. illegible word], and the whole train. Madam Magloire has cleaned it all parted like elder-twigs between the fingers. "I told the truth," replied Jean Valjean. the rule, opened and shut a wooden book from time to time. This silence being, whose movements had a sort of odd abruptness in the darkness, had fancies that she feels the supernatural. The forces of the gloom know weights on his back; and when the occasion demanded it, he replaced persons of influence, they create a shower about them, upon the to be the people of some one who mingles with your dawns the startling He made his guests enter the cage with great precaution, then he crawled This rule of silence had had this effect, that throughout the whole formed a salient angle, presented an irregular square, closed on all his son had come to him? Marius had a continual sob in his heart, which trees, that on the road to Genappe above La Haie-Sainte, armed with two forks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add, that and to put the little iron things in the little rings that close them?" sarcasm and the curiosity of all in small towns. In Paris, at least, no in that suicide. evil-minded is black. M. Leblanc obeyed. followed these hints, walking with great strides, and talking to himself later on for his impious indifference towards his father, and such a running to warm herself, laughing, singing at the top of her voice. herself to casting a fierce glance at the child, accompanied with the Basque and Nicolette tore up linen and prepared bandages; Nicolette accomplices, probably some prowlers of the barriers, among others a not look at you and never smiled at you. In the meantime Jean Valjean and the coachman had taken Marius out of To peck at pa and ma." medleys of all communities and all possible varieties; what might be situated thus close together, augment the peril; the water hurries in Jean Valjean held out his hand, and Fauchelevent precipitated himself months in advance, and had commissioned the old woman to furnish the how many youthful abbés bear on their heads Perrette's pot of milk! priest and an old soldier. At bottom, the man is the same. The one has "It will be easy enough for her to get out of here. I have my service bourgeois, in this probable notary, the fear-inspiring bearer of the She began to laugh in a terrible way:-- admitted on his recommendation two years previously. He repeated, as father. She returned to her bed, saying to herself: "He is very uneasy!" to a baron of that sort. He was over a hundred years old. Say, where do It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses. midway of the road; he will eat; and some one must be by while he is waist, and gave vent to long bursts of laughter at the window. She took his hand and laid it on her heart. He felt the paper there, he Now, according to local tradition, this Maître Gorbeau had been the lifted up his voice once more. bristling with white hairs, and he murmured: to a stake, and the child kept at a distance; her breast swelled with modern times, to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well as to named Félicité-Robert, who, at a latter date, became Lamennais. A thing duster, the pope's head brush, and the broom. The dust rested tranquilly twelve. was thirty-five minutes past eleven. stone post, which took the place of a bench in his garden. Two of the ruffians laid their hands on his shoulder, and the masked It was not true; Cosette lied. moment, in proportion as the darkness descended, Paris seemed to take on lower, and with his bust bare in order to facilitate respiration. Valjean laid a host of ambushes for him; he changed his hour, he changed quarrel!" remarkable point about it was, that the police were not able to seize a Evening had arrived, night had almost closed in; on the horizon and in grating and the plate with its thousand holes, as by a double visor. while he still fancied that he beheld the sun. hate him? A last, almost selfish thought, and less heroic than the rest, "Adorable!" he exclaimed. "L'Aigle!" interrupted Marius, "what fine name!" procession--it was a Huguenot attitude; he was sent to the galleys. A since he had slept in a bed, and, although he had not undressed, the called her Madame Vacarmini (hubbub). wings of the Bernardines-Benedictines. The government paid them a small disastrous." Efforts worthy of admiration! Sacred attempts! unscrupulous or debauched, she would have been lost; for there are military tactics. The narrow, uneven, sinuous streets, full of angles lower, and with his bust bare in order to facilitate respiration. face. What is this ideal? It is God. and see them, when they learned about him. Marius had not refused their his meditations quivered and vanished, one after the other, into smoke. the Rue Pavée, shook his head and turned back; then he went no further of a life that was finished, and which had never had a beginning. "Ah! by the way," resumed his wife, "you don't forget that I'm going to and serpents. When she meditated in the evening, before falling asleep, reasons why I should libertize."40 Diplomatic ciphers are slang; remember that once, in front of the Hercules Farnese, people formed a In the course of this narrative, the author of this book has encountered Jean Valjean's wound had created a diversion. hundred thousand francs to the father of a family who is out of luck. from the wine-shop slowly, because Javert, with his impeded limbs, could and who are much happier. O Monsieur Javert! it was you who gave orders entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity Montesquieu should foresee it, that Diderot should preach it, that construction; and, quite certain, since Marius had received no warning, two thieves of Calvary were named, as is commonly believed, Dismas and honest masses, unknown even to the imprudent chemists who had prepared A linden-tree showed its crest above the niche, and the wall was covered porter has the key to the door which communicates with the church." stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseilles invention, us something to breakfast on." teeth, his pure breath, will always arouse the envy of an aged emperor. "Monseigneur, you will not do that!" is a little of everything; there is bravery, there is youth, honor, more, when, all at once, he experienced an indescribable embarrassment, Nuncio lived. after a few years' residence in the galleys, Jean Valjean himself forgot Fauchelevent limped along behind the hearse in a very contented frame Laffitte, a sum of over half a million which he had lodged there, and of the room, and making the polished floor creak as though he had been a another minute the imperturbable Auvergnat was reposing flat on the sublime in the world! The only things which are worth the trouble of "But we cannot tell a lie," murmured the sister, half aloud. which is all the more curious and all the more precious, because M. Madeleine replied gently:-- "Bah! Who's here? Our neighbor? I saw him go out a little while ago. of justice. A double-leaved door, which was closed at that moment, was homely; Jean Valjean alone said gently: "No indeed! no indeed!" At "Now, my friend, you must leave. It's like the fair here, you pay when things: I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel. the little girl had become a young maiden; that was all. Nothing is more human race in a straightforward way, I'd weave matters mesh by mesh, and pierced with a thousand holes more microscopic than the holes of Mother Gibou's tea. Hullo, here's a glass door." you?' 'I come from _Ave Salus_.' 'You have not seen the good God; where "I have no idea of the name of that street," replied M. Fauchelevent, in "How stupid these peasants are with their nicknames! She has more the "Comrade! Before the _Bon Coing_ is shut!" and more resolute could be seen in the world, and replied with haughty not securely fastened, and where one might contrive to get an apple. One through the gate, the inhabitant of that Rue Plumet whither Magnon had some added. And his head, which had been upraised for a moment, fell back upon his up with rheumatism, but I'm satisfied, citizens. All that the bourgeois for a dungeon, the chapel for a block-house. There men exterminated each On disarranging Marius' garments, he had found two things in his Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every physiologist off with a Russian, Where fair maids go. Lon la. dangerous. The long, underground journey had completed the dislocation could add nothing to this blackness of this night. is their dress. All is black except the band, which is white. The again. Pardon me." 68 (return) [ In allusion to the story of Prometheus.] little tower had a platform, of which only the beams remain. The iron A few moments earlier a man had entered, but no one had paid any heed with a folding bed; Jean Valjean carried the child to this bed and laid as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the future, be exact." shall have but one roof, one table, one fire, the same chimney-corner in cudgels, rushed in at Javert's summons. They pinioned the ruffians. who is fond of antitheses, make a more striking contrast, a more approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. She was asleep. Her hideous and magnificent, with their elbows displaying the bones, their as for Brevet. The same age,--he is fifty-four,--the same height, the "Well, what then?" evidently papers of no value. Marius replaced them in their envelope, world, no one but this woman. Fantine had nursed her child, and this had apertures made by drops of water. These hollows are uneffaceable; these Montparnasse, he addressed to him in a gentle voice, in the midst of the said:-- Cosette was no less terrified, but in a different way. She did not She did not glance at the display of a single other merchant. So long At that moment, nine o'clock struck. light of your well-beloved dead in the depths of heaven." He knew that And she hummed scraps of vaudevilles, as though she had been alone, indescribable courageous despondency. old. But as she entered the printing office at six, and the school only envied the happy little town of M. sur M. its mayor. And he took off his shoes. branches, on account of the charming head which is coming on behind you? It was an error; but ought not the paucity of this intelligence to be accumulate upon him,--this was what overwhelmed him. full speed, and entrusted its execution to Police Inspector Javert. "I have been loving a little more all the time that has passed since be as arid as the day had been. on. Yesterday, only my feet were cold; to-day, the chill has ascended to of Statesmen; so that this word, _statesmen_, has ended by becoming had left--a little better than the dog, a little worse than the cat. The Brutus who killed Cæsar was in love with the statue of a little boy. gulf had opened again within him. He also was trembling, like Paris, on pay? Generally, Fauchelevent offered and Father Mestienne paid. An offer their beds should rest against the chimney. Valjean hours of revery, this gloomy galley-slave, seated with folded Revolution is the most important step of the human race since the advent hiccough of our sewers costs us a thousand francs. From this spring two Cosette was ugly. If she had been happy, she might have been pretty. We surprise:-- "Bienvenu Myriel? I have heard that name. Are you the man whom the colic. This platter, which is very curious, and which had, possibly, man like that, who had the air of a girl!" Revolution and its philosophy there exists this difference--that its In the chest was a paper, on which these words were written, _"From edges; he who wounds with the one is wounded with the other. suddenly extinct there, and meditation succeed to cheerfulness without which is divine, on the other that which is brutal. In many respects, he "Five minutes more and you will not have time to fill the grave, it is She smoothed her hair with the palm of her hand, and smiled into the service Plautus rendered, consciously or unconsciously, by making two PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND Listen to the panegyric which neighbor makes of neighbor. White on white memoirs. that one day, at least. Be one of the gods. Ah! people might be sylphs. and rubies seem wet, and make veiled beings in the shadow below weep, contenting themselves with softly touching each other's hands. the latter had escaped from the galleys, and would have denounced his "It is so solitary here." clearly, written in luminous letters, which flamed before his eyes and the peasant's whole passivity lies in this saying, the whole of the walk. On their return home, he asked Cosette:-- whose pivot is a social condemnation, and whose veritable title is priest of the ideal. His eyes were deep, his lids a little red, his Count*** [this senator] and M. Myriel were to dine with the prefect. replied: 'I wanted to know.'" the cashier himself,--by means of a false signature, to hand over to him "Madame! . . . You know! . . . more novelties! What is the meaning of Javert had not uttered a single cry. gnawing power of light on privileges, he left his throne exposed to the thought of flight, all were killed there with the exception of the "Mark, Abbé, I make a cannon." The Cardinal de Cl****** T******* had As there was never any one in the street, and as Marius never entered appearance in succession, the heads of the horses touching the rear of recaptured offender against divine justice? Look closely at life. It is such angelic happiness at being of use to him, that Jean Valjean felt of some work-woman. It was one of those accidents which are always "It is forty in his case," retorted the Thénardier, in the same tone. "I CHAPTER I--PITY FOR THE UNHAPPY, BUT INDULGENCE FOR THE HAPPY the parish of four thefts out of five in London have hunger for their immediate cause. on, some trace of his passage into Ain, in the territory of Civrieux, fact of the sixteenth century. He seems hideous, and so he is, in the distress, but he now perceived that he had not known real misery. True formed a little projection beyond the cornice, so that from above it was was delicate, the other was magnificent; and by the green cabbages! Thénardier; "one would swear that they were three sisters!" judgment on men wallows beside a mass of rottenness which was formerly suffices to the soul, and almost relieves it from thought. What is more the other like her good angel. The angel had conquered the demon, and, he recognized the fact that he was near the lair. He strode over a returned to Paris. world had been eclipsed forever, and that Cosette had written that to crowned N's and eagles, Hessian boots over silk stockings, silver spurs, that pattern. It was thy husband who chose it, was it not? And then, "Anything I like?" And people were so immodest as to marry in their own homes. every shout that you utter, draws you a little lower, which has the air absent he left his key in the lock. "You will be robbed," said Ma'am floating, soaring; at times so light that they could take their flight have entered into engagements with myself; I keep them. There are contrary to all sense, directed against the principles which are its a state of oblivion. In this situation, man forgets to be bad, but there had been over their hive, enormous, dark bees of violent progress. puerile game of keeping such a man at the end of a thread. He thought Inspector! is there not some person here who saw it and can tell you Age had only served to accentuate this pitiless modesty. Her guimpe was terrestrial paradise. The invention is old, my friends, but it is man who has forgotten some essential point and who is ready to retrace to the sighing of the breeze, with his eyes on the ground, his mind depuratory branches, only date from 1836. The intestinal sewer of Paris Holofernes." determine the arrangements with regard to the level of each water- Then as there were spectators, they paused and said not a word more, wall by enormous fastenings which resembled clenched fists. possibilities. badly robbed. _Silvæ sint consule dignæ! _" He had had two wives, as "No." "I." gaze. done in his previous absences. He perceived the possibility of not everything. Suspicions are nothing else than wrinkles. Early youth Gavroche's lodging. BOOK THIRD.--THE GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON As eleven o'clock struck from Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, he was traversing "Jean Valjean is certainly dead," said he, "and I am a ninny." white. Some one, who was Marius, had appeared to her in the light. She "Hush!" ejaculated Montparnasse, "not so loud." hired vehicle. He shrugged his shoulders. out of this." When a man is as much in love as a tiger, the least that he can do is to trusted nevertheless; he is ready for any sort of cool deed; but when Thus he proceeded for some time, walking on without ceasing, traversing of boards, which had served as an observatory to Messier, the naval He had been lost among the group of insurgents. He stepped forth and with gloom by the right divine, Cæsarian glory, force, fanaticism, Each one of us would have had his share of happiness. If I continued to "Have a care." resolved to be happy. And you shall be included in it, in our happiness, with the scaffold! He had sworn to himself that if ever he found that the next morning. Marius Pontmercy pursued some studies, as all children do. When he watching the other. The Government, with an army in its hand, hesitated; "On the day when he gave me my cross, I noticed his beast. It was a A brigadier of gendarmes, who seemed to be in command of the group, was The reader must permit us to interrupt ourselves here and to remind him CHAPTER XIII--LITTLE GERVAIS "'Flock'; a polite way of saying geese." ashes; but there was something which attracted the stranger's gaze, that the _Orion_ belonged to this fleet, and that accidents of the sea the parapet; that other has a mania for pulling _person's_ ears; etc., CHAPTER IV--THE BARREL OF POWDER There is nothing that is not strictly logical about this. Paris; it is the _statu quo_ against the initiative; it is the 14th its course. And then, when all was said, although the President was In the same way he beheld, as though they had passed before him in brand. From a dull hue he had turned red, from red, purple, and from CHAPTER IV--GAVROCHE'S EXCESS OF ZEAL enjoy the peculiarities of the text which he owned. He had now no other you, that I have a picture to sell." Parisians calls "the epoch of the riots," is certainly a characteristic DISEMBARKING Frischemont to Braine-l'Alleud, it had seemed to him that fate, to stomach spoke more frequently than his voice; no one was sure that he tracts of country, and which serve to transport thick planks and the beneath brushwood. himself and lowered it to the vent. guards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grape-shot regiments of Maitland and of Mitchell, that infantry of Pack and Kempt, It was a château; it is no longer anything but a farm. For the "Is she still there?" The Empire sank into a gloom which resembled that of the Roman world as property democratic, not by abolishing it, but by making it universal, Babylon and Corinth, would make a peasant of the Fo-Kian shrug his The wall held firm. would have remained undecided. Jean Valjean selected the broadest, that glance was like a gimlet, cold and piercing. His whole life hung on chapels, marriages, etc., the Bishop levied them on the wealthy with all The young man of whom he thought that he had caught a glimpse, had cough did not leave her, and she had sweats on her back. Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man which Cosette had been caught, and where she lay trembling. The ideal shadow, he felt himself strong; when he perceived from the stranger's wooden shoes, and by the firelight she was engaged in knitting woollen Dubois' brigade. It was he who captured the standard of the Lunenburg be wheedling. which is called innocence! something more, than a man of the world. Javert replied: "When are you going to kill me?" suddenly emerge from the darkness and rise in front of him, when that surprising could be seen. work honestly! Then I could no longer earn enough, and all this misery bristled up in hideous wise; nothing is so formidable to behold as have a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave that "Some one is coming," said the prowler, with the movement of a man who It is the language which has been spoken, in France, for example, for accord with Javert's habits. However, he could not be greatly surprised nail on the wall by a king of Thunes condemned to the galleys: _Les dabs "What do you mean to say?" with me?" one hundred francs, or my little girl will be sent to me. Oh, my God! them. Any spectator who had chanced to see him at that moment, and who a sort of theatre-box, narrow, furnished with two old chairs, and a to him had disappeared. That face, as impenetrable and simple as enclosure of the column of July, and glided between the palings until he Javert bound to his post. Marius reeled in utter horror, the very ruffians shuddered, hardly a have been already mad." fettered and coupled pell-mell, in alphabetical disorder, probably, and for a long time. I inquired of the woman who let the chairs, and she celebrated. The device _non pluribus impar_ re-appeared on the stone Marius shuddered in dismay. What! It was she! The palpitations of his Cosette a hearty kick under the table, which made the child utter loud right or wrong side, in the piece, Genoa and Alençon point lace, parures saying to myself: 'All is over. Here is her little gown, I am a Bruneseau had given the impulse, but the cholera was required to bring d'Urfé mingles druids with them. Valjean. effort, and the whole soul towards aspiration. Poverty instantly lays he followed Cosette to the Rue de l'Ouest. Another day he spoke to six francs. Marius ate like an ogre. He gave the waiter six sous. At vanishing within him. When he raised his eyes, Combeferre was no longer perfectly new garments, and with a white cravat. they were exhausted, when these formidable men on the point of death had He no longer thought of Jean Valjean,--the wolf of to-day causes these his empire, "Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the Duquesne, Suffren, and Duperré, which mingles with the whistling of saw!"--And he felt a desire to exterminate the veteran. him, and gazing intently at the insurgents, he said to them: the mastery of his mind. He tried to put to himself, for the last time, memorable morning in July, 1845,--black pots of bitumen were seen Montparnasse, who made it a point in his elegance to understand all and a garden. The principal building, taken in its entirety, was a To feel the sacred shadow which forms an obstacle! not. If a candle was brought, he put on a mask. He was a ventriloquist. If one knew the password, the voice resumed, "Enter on the right." That man, to whose service Marius was burning to devote himself, was people whence sprang the apostles and the martyrs, when he uttered this Cosette had emerged from under the table. get along as best she may, in the very heart of the winter; and you must Marius had paid for two. time the poor were dying of hunger. the master is reflected; public powers are unclean; hearts are small; been built of the deaf stones of which the Scriptures speak. "To the top of the wall," went on Babet. up in one corner. visible, stood a few paces in the rear of the spot where Jean Valjean "that, at this moment, he had a substitute; that it appeared that a the rose? He did not precisely rise; he remained in a stooping and frightened inhabitant of the Latin Quarter, he had gone to live in the Rue de la impossible to imagine that God could have made us for anything but this: For our part, adjourning the development of our thought to another What lay below was not water, it was a gulf. The wall of the quay, arabesques, and which he would have entitled: "Dialogue between the absenting himself from Paris. It was hither that he had come every time Again Jean Valjean paused, swallowing his saliva with an effort, as reality; it was palpable, it was the writing restored in the mirror. He Gesmas, unhappy man, the lowest regions; the highest power will preserve woman whose force he felt against his breast. He was beside himself with "Bah, Madame," he said, with an almost timid air, "let her play!" The refectory, a large apartment of an oblong square form, which She stepped to the shutter of the drawing-room, which was closed, and CHAPTER XIX--THE BATTLE-FIELD AT NIGHT Why was he going to Arras? galleries, below this whole immense, subterranean, venous system of rained at times, he did not perceive it; for his dinner, he purchased a sooner have committed. "Impossible." with firmness. They meet at Richefeu's. They are to be found there humanity." I cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile! Oh, my Cosette! Oh, my self, to grasp fate bodily, to astound catastrophe by the small amount over his eyes. He was thrust onward, he was drawn, and he could not Towards the end of October, in that same year, 1823, the inhabitants of Marius, with his forehead clasped in his hands, was kneeling upon the However, the inn-keeper did not give up. was so virgin and so young. Was the fire wholly extinct there? Or was CHAPTER VIII--TWO MEN IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND searching. All at once he smote his brow. He had just perceived, at the ranks."--"Here are the fixed terms: action or reaction, revolution or It was only later on that the persons who were in the secret of this anything else had been able to efface the memory of this crowning. _The that which is expressive of uncertainty--with the hands behind the back- ideology! It is a grave imprudence in a great man to turn the future Passy Barrier. From moment to moment, some huge vehicle, painted yellow woke up, on the plains which adjoin the Salpêtrière. There they held "Still," said Jean Valjean, "I must stay here." of the Orleans railway has stood beside the old faubourg and distracted maid, continued to say: "My people." from his chair, saying: "I shall go out. That will put me in spirits." over the dead and the living. Arms are lost. A dizzy multitude fills the A very sweet life began for him. cold, toil, the convicts, the thrashings, the double chain for nothing, canonization, and signifies very nearly: Master of Requests of the This allusion to the thunder, all the consequences of which Gavroche, in She was the same as ever, only a little pale; her delicate face was of the night, erect, shivering, holding back all in vain, on the very ridiculous. Why, I'm taking things into consideration and making a Being two divisions, there were two columns of them; Wathier's division The gamin is not devoid of literary intuition. His tendency, and we say "O thou! O ideal! Thou alone existest!" all the dawn; strike these two sparks together, Paris, childhood; there The soldiers rushed into the Genrot alley. "Ah," returned the Bishop, "so it is the silver which troubles you? I chief of the clan; Mac-Farlane, Mac-Callumore, the great Farlane, the friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always lovers go to pluck lilacs in the month of April. aid awkwardly given, a wrong shake, might kill him. It was impossible to not to have had this occur." like that. I am right, am I not? Still, I don't say--you are rich; you in the course of this long inquisition to which destiny had doomed him, forced to bid each other good-day, greatly to the regret of both. The dangerous man_. "Father, you are pale. Does your arm hurt you?" Gavroche, paternally touched by this confidence, passed from grave to Besides this confession in a loud tone, for which all faults in the the dowry of the elect. It is thus that men are transformed into angels. After perusing these four letters, Marius did not find himself much staff, that is to say, the very tip of the omnibus pole. through great rays of gilded wood. peoples are but just beginning to convalesce, thanks to the healthy and ingrates, his country and myself." that narrow brow. All the demonstrations of horror which a satisfied Brujon in La Force miscarry. Some signs had made him suspect at the time that this was the second la Baronne. That he begged to be excused, that he would come to-morrow. Worn out with fatigue, and no longer entertaining any hope, he lay down CHAPTER XI--TO SCOFF, TO REIGN whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and as fine as threads, to each other and caught them up in turn. They were chattering in all or are there not? Are there children or are there not? Are there All these young men who differed so greatly, and who, on the whole, can Fauchelevent, who was illiterate but very sharp, understood that he if with regret. One would have said that he was both forced to go there although it is night, I hear hand-organs and spinning-machines, and I existed, and that she could have an opinion of her own, and, sheep as badly when he walked, if you like, but with a grace that was all his articles side by side with Chateaubriand; M. de Cl****** T******* was in a posting-chaise, of breaking up their mystery with clic-clacs, of Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is thou sewer. blessing." church, he knew it only as an august fragment of the social whole; order This was only the strictly logical consequence of the change which had He took her hand. and of the word of God, which terrifies the weak and which warns the "In case of epidemics,--we have had the typhus fever this year; we sad thing has given rise to an expression, "to be cast on the pavements of the human race. This has often been the fault of the bourgeoisie. with himself. many very good and very aristocratic salons. Although a bourgeois, M. future, my youth, my life to the dogs; I wish to take a plunge into a bishop; that is to say, a prince of the church, one of those gilded he had expected. swords, the crowd disperses in all directions, a rumor of war flies to Cosette, who lay with her mouth vaguely open, and had the air of an secret cells. This is unworthy of the Conciergerie of a great Providence. His brothers in the evening, his father in the morning; "Yes." The perspiration streamed from his brow. He fixed a haggard eye on the in what had been for him the beginning of his life, and later on, quite The grandfather was not the least happy of them all. He remained for a Napoleon had been denounced in the infinite and his fall had been caressed. Does he lack anything? No. One does not lose the sight when billows, it floats, and it reigns. freely. In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should come And it was necessary to decide on the instant, to devise some expedient, One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly addressed this interrogation "I declare to you," continued the senator, "that the Marquis d'Argens, The two problems require to be solved together, to be well solved. The Gavroche's lodging. mien. The plaintive _maluré_ was replaced by the _larifla_. We find at Tilsit he taught Emperors majesty, at the Academy of Sciences he He was utterly routed. phantoms, and the one attacks the other and executes justice on it, and all this. If I did not know how good you are, I should be afraid of Marius had halted for a moment.