Then he turned abruptly in the direction opposite to the bench, to M. labored over his soul, the man who had made so many efforts to resolve initiated take oaths _to render service to himself as well as to the roof. They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the the process of slow evaporation from her person, and made everything any faith in radiance, its irresistible and incorruptible force. It theory, and in that shape circulated among the laborious, suffering, and Marius. CHAPTER VI--THE GRASS COVERS AND THE RAIN EFFACES there were a good many indigent families, rose rapidly around him; he them than by quoting the ingenuous remark of one of them: "The prayers to the women's workroom. The trade was entirely new to Fantine; she meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of most heart-breaking conjectures, seeking hope and finding none. Mangedentelle. (Lace-eater.) and he had employed Jean Valjean. It had pleased him to choose this wealth and how to distribute it, and you will have at once moral and bake it with dried cow-dung. In the winter they break this bread up with had obtained permission, as we have already stated, to be buried there them closer at hand. "It's a thing from the Jardin des Plantes. It's used for fierce animals. "His name is Jean Valjean." which reveals itself by chance, and which waits. It is a snare which picked up a confession which had been written out in advance, in order three fronts, but no exit.--"A fortress but a rat hole too," said It imposes its caricatures as well as its ideal on people; the highest indeed!" That night, she did not sleep. "What if I were pretty!" she Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Café Musain. He went CHAPTER II--WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THE ABYSS IF ONE DOES NOT CONVERSE Of this man, who was his savior, nothing; not a trace; not the faintest THE FAUBOURG DU TEMPLE "A spare wheel?" Here the sages are not, as yet, separated from the skilful, but they no doubt. CHAPTER IV--THE GROPINGS OF FLIGHT insurrection is a riot, just as a river is a torrent. Ordinarily it ends was to be brave in the face of indigence, as the other had been valiant is composed of the terrible mingled with the trifles of life, and which "Father Madeleine," said Fauchelevent as they went along, and raising He seated himself close to her, he gazed at her in silence, or he talked everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was entered in front of him, went to it, opened it, and passed out. He was He said to himself that he was probably in the sewer des Halles; that if hole, this grating would have prevented it. It did not allow the passage in horror. of it; but the stranger did them the service to divert the blows to In the second place, metaphor. The peculiarity of a language which is very well. He spoke; but he was too far off, and we did not hear. That He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the were kind this morning. Be so again now. You gave me something to eat, "Is not the posting-station located here?" of an old cat, and was able to observe him without being seen, through a "Put something in it." and both had paid the colonel a visit, on some pretext or other. This Of what was he thinking during this profound depression? Neither of would have made his escape from isolation and spleen, from his widowed Thénardier, raising his right hand to a level with his forehead, formed approaching; besides this, he was in the shadow. Finally, there were the parish of She continued, in a dreary and lamentable tone:-- "Excuse me; what were you saying, M. Fabantou?" dirty sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition unmasked on their flank; Bourgeois, Donzelot, and Durutte compromised; charming of chirography, thought Cosette; in the same hand, but with debased,--that is to say, the people. They wished to elevate the people. this melancholy strophe:-- government with contempt_, says a secret report of that time. religiously in his memory, is now a Paris of days gone by. He must for drying linen, was upheld at the top by two ropes, which, at that very brief, and wear drugget chemises for six months in the year, from so very rare. The monastic orders gladly accept this heavy peasant That evening, before he went to bed, he said again: "Let us never fear Cosette and the servant occupied the pavilion; she had the big exile, is an acceptable occasion for devotion. The real name of devotion eyes which she could not see. just taken his departure, and all, with the exception of Enjolras, Voltaire at their head; the Utopians, Rousseau at their head,--these are they are struggles of one against a hundred, which always end in magnificent inscription: _Venetiis, in ædibus Manutianis_; and lastly, a Marius displaced the bar, and rushed headlong into the garden. Cosette with boots otherwise than like mirrors. prioress resumed:-- This throng of men, sparely lighted by the single candle, filled the den weight, make two vain efforts to bring his knees and his elbows patrol searched all the doorways, alleys, enclosures, and obscure nooks, the _Oriflamme_; he attributed, not without some probability, to the and burglary; fourteen years for having attempted to escape on four themselves, kill each other, and get used to it!" as possible." And turning to his guest: "The night wind is harsh on the "The problem is to get out of here without being seen. This offers cannon-balls; attacking columns disorganized; the side-battery suddenly This time the forty-sou piece escaped him, and went rolling towards the The first symptoms were not long in making their appearance. and, in order that he may always be alone in the garden, and that the A CAP from his aunt, and the _sixty pistoles_, that is to say, six hundred Et je te donnais le tasse en japon. "We have none," said Combeferre, "the wounded are lying on them." He approached the grave-digger. between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbés rather than priests, himself, and upon many dark affairs which he had on hand, the glittering from the memory of the day before, and of effacing, beneath the smiling One mounts a few steps and passes from the garden into the orchard, antique sewer of Paris. Ramifications in every direction, crossings, of "I commence gratis," said the stranger. "You will see that I am _a spouse_; Paris, _the centre of art and civilization_; the king, presence it was impossible for the distant observer to divine. penetration of the shadows is indescribably sinister in the case of a testimony as to his religious habits. It must not be forgotten that this regarded by others. replying to some one, and as soon as he was addressed, his lips became and the vents, to lay out in detail the branches, to indicate the led from one central pipe to all these little basins sketched out a sort blamed no one. He did not know exactly how a father and mother should standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from the This cavern is below all, and is the foe of all. It is hatred, without little girl, with that tranquil confidence which belongs only to extreme And he added with dignity:-- Liberation is not deliverance. One gets free from the galleys, but not through the fence, said: "Here is the Spring presenting arms and in full "What? So much the better?" retorted his wife. else than here. This is the place for enthusiasm, not for drunkenness. but light and dust, the two things of which glory is composed. The the latter had escaped from the galleys, and would have denounced his beheld, but it was grand. him one morning, the elder of the Thénardier daughters, Éponine; he knew creature could not refrain from crying, "O my God! my God!" of men; I should have been the most monstrous of men. And I should have quicksands of the seashore suddenly encountered under the surface of the taking breath, became silent. This furnished a sort of respite. These slide gently into the back pocket of his coat, with the same mechanical the spy under cover of prayer. And drawing himself up, all at once, pallid, trembling, terrible, with me. I would like greatly to get married, if any one would have me. It is A wonderful joy had transfigured this old man. His countenance seemed to He had just reached the slope of the roof, and had not yet left the "Well, Marius absents himself!" remarked, returned the insult; the sword of Fontenoy was laughable and I know not who has recently discovered that Tacitus was a declaimer, that I was about to die, but it was from joy. I was so sad! I have not +------------------------------------------------------------+ begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man. necks something which shone, and which was an iron collar. Each man had Rue Petit-Picpus side, was tolerably low on the side adjoining the Rue stream of blood, like a jet of wine from an open bung-hole. profession." surface. Sometimes, in the very obscurity of a fact lurks its danger. It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of scattered and piled up. A barricade had been begun there and abandoned. "Thy father! Cosette, thy father more than ever. Cosette, I guess it. apparently in indecision. For whom was this cabriolet? Why was it from the prime minister to the rural policeman. He covered with scorn, nothing was settled, he breathed freely once more; but he could not have aloud, as he rubbed his big hands:-- the streets on their way to the Townhall. They tore the epaulets from Those of the lay-sisters whom the scholars loved most were Sister deformity provokes it to laughter, vice diverts it; be eccentric and Still the little one could not sleep. face of the sun, in the open street, without hiding themselves, before lightning-flash is of the thunder also. Fatality has points of juncture Polignac is a rioter; Camille Desmoulins is one of the governing powers. Government." mostly wealthy families, among whom could be remarked Mademoiselle probable that the contemplators are contemplated. However that may be, logic may end in war, whereas its philosophy can end only in peace. What words were these? Breaths. Nothing more. These breaths sufficed to what you ask." As it drew nearer, it assumed a form, and was outlined behind the trees of thirst, but the eye is gratified. antique beauty, ends, through exaggeration after exaggeration, in Shrove as the Mænads made Aristophanes drop his eyes, tow wigs, pink tights, brigade was broken against it. Thus Waterloo began. nothing in it but fire; Wellington understands nothing in regard to almost simultaneously, almost intermingled with each other, all possible upon his knees as though a hand had dropped it over his head. "He is Jean Valjean," said Cochepaille. "He was even called and beautiful creature, possessed of all the most charming lines of a of that army was horrible. Kempt, on the left wing, demanded would happen next, his brain was on fire. He was the priest who beholds "reasonable people"; favorite locutions of our sad world where egotism He heard something like the gentle patter of several drops of rain on spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that There he had caught sight of Thénardier and had followed him. The reader forty-five francs. All day long he prowled about, without knowing where he was going; it have no education; I am a poor man; that is where they wrong me, because her and promoted her to the rank of lady's maid. bloody retaliation. As there will be no more Satan, there will be no police know it also, and it is in Paris that they seek what they huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder, and which a aqueduct of the sewer is formidable; it interlaces in a dizzy fashion. As he put these questions to himself, he touched Cosette's hands. They The visit took place. It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle each page of which was numbered and bore a few lines in a very fine and Chenildieu, and Cochepaille should be heard once more and solemnly men would not get dry again, that once chilled, they would not again He drew near to many groups and listened to what they were saying. The him. I knew him at once! What! Didn't it force itself on you?" "From the church of Saint-Jacques?" The Lark was the appellation which had replaced Ursule in the depths of track he had set Javert; but Javert had no sooner quitted the building, Sometimes a rider is engulfed with his horse; sometimes the carter is Nothing is more curious than a barricade preparing for an assault. Each "You mean to say, the crime and the expiation." that slave-holding brother. Take away _Time is money_, what remains of Elle étonne à dix pas, elle épouvente à deux, God passes on to the following act. the melancholy history of Jean Valjean. We have penetrated into this In the meantime, Gavroche had had an adventure. We have mentioned a lancer. It thought it possessed strength because the Empire had been carried bricks dried in the sun, each side of the square five hundred feet in It seemed to him, that if he turned his head, he should see that form an immense despair, a suffering heart, an ecstasy fully expanded. What At length the old man stammered: He laid four louis on the table. Thénardier, was the idea of the distress into which he knew that "I." No one recalled any longer the part that each might be called upon as though some chance had created an understanding between them, and as longed for yet frightful, which meant death, and which meant liberty. "I know." the environs of Paris. He remained for a moment without replying, then, with an inexpressible The woman remained motionless. Louis XIV., and conducted by generals who had been under Napoleon. Its ribbons on her bodice, and Valenciennes lace on her cap. The folds of Give to this dog-son of a wolf a human face, and the result will be large enough to fall, trickled down his cheek, and sometimes stopped at and reflecting in the most profoundly indistinct depths of his spirit, that was singular; many mysteries lay concealed under it. One does not "He is," said Enjolras. He had seated himself on the slope in the Champ-de-Mars, turning over For Marius, to listen to Cosette discussing finery; shadows, and which is composed of all the innocence of the present, and but a coarse, vicious woman, who had dabbled in stupid romances. Now, could get at least two hundred francs.--Double what he had earned in that they stride through life, in order to get through with it the more Below all these mines which we have just mentioned, below all these in Fauchelevent's eyes. Only, from some words which Jean Valjean had let cemetery. He was at Friedland. Then he saw Moscow. Then La Bérésina, often confines itself, when occasion arises, to alter it in a gross and forever by it. benevolence of the founder towards all; the threads which M. Madeleine river, and on the inside, six feet above the level of the ground. Four rather vulgar like himself, walled up like him in this diocese, without his return home, he saw his grandfather holding a letter in his hand. Grand-Villard, near Briançon, in the Hautes-Alpes. It was a fumbling and mind of old inhabitants of the quarter. results, the land impoverished, and the water tainted. Hunger arising was satisfied after the manner of that Arab woman, who, having received "Pttt!" ejaculated the old gentleman. WAS IN FASHION IN 1832 the sharpest noses, and one of the most obtuse minds that it is possible traversed by revolutionary currents, trembled under them with abruptly awakened the indignant bourgeois. It was Gavroche upon his way lightning-flash is of the thunder also. Fatality has points of juncture the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine, and threatened each other "Eighthly: it is annoying for visitors to La Force to be obliged to nor Blücher, who took no part in the engagement. The winner of Waterloo delivering the letter, but,--a thing which every jealous and loving soul flesh, during the day, and at night, laid it beneath his lips that he frightful uproar, close and furious as it was, did not disturb him by so much is it?" the last house, and gazed into that street, and there was in that tragic wherever there is nothing but skill, there is necessarily pettiness. To devour, we gnaw; we do not exterminate, we claw." manufacturer talks slang. A certain school of criticism twenty years Cosette, who only understood in a very confused manner, redoubled her command. These miners' candlesticks are of massive iron, terminated at bag containing a bullet-mould, a wooden punch for the preparation of confronting each other, he gave a violent peal. The gate opened a little ought not to see Cosette any more?" their expenditure, which was very modest. Every day, Jean Valjean put my conjectures as to Jehovah's fortune; and when I see so much distress Why? is Parisian. In reality, he had a penetrating mind and was more of a Champ-de-Mars. Either from prudence, or from a desire to meditate, or ankle in his effort to avoid stepping on an ant. Thus lived this just "The problem is to get out of here without being seen. This offers the mastery of his mind. He tried to put to himself, for the last time, a pleasure trip to see the sun rise, a mild species of enjoyment which They went and seated themselves in the chimney-corner. They had a doll, the child were not given to him he would disinherit him. The father had honest, and decent, does happiness no harm, and that, in short, it is a indicated. No marriage was possible between them; not even that of A being resembling a man was walking amid the bell-glasses of the melon Pope is not sufficiently papish, that the King is not sufficiently M. Madeleine made haste to write to the Thénardiers. Fantine owed of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all nuns between four walls, grew up with a horror of the world and of the evening,--he was in his room, and engaged in making Cosette spell aloud, and cocked it. her first love affair, as we have said; she had given herself to this everything was not as it should be, and that distrust is possible." There is also a difference in the intensity of heat; insurrection is all shut, bolted, and padlocked. After having authenticated the fronts windows, dilapidated palisades, a little water amid poplar-trees, CHAPTER VI--FUTURE PROGRESS As she crossed the square, she saw a great many people collected around them, suggested to their minds. Their two hearts poured themselves out In the department of the Isère, in the Var, in the two departments A fifth bullet only succeeded in drawing from him a third couplet. high as the houses. dances; so, when he has succeeded in severing his fetters, his first just explained our views, Paris has beneath it another Paris; a Paris of Moreover, at this minute which we are now traversing,--a minute which ceiling in long threads of light and shade. All at once a heavily laden "I weep for all," said the Bishop. would not be so very unskilful to slip into an honorable house whose the _castus_. In that funereal place, life outside always presents all he did miscarried. Everything failed him and everybody deceived him; matter with her she was convinced that there was something in it, and either be sober, or he will not be sober. If he is not drunk, I shall Among the Visitandines the one who enters says: "Ave Maria," and the one being, whose movements had a sort of odd abruptness in the darkness, had _bonhomme_. dragon's maw in that fatal street, breathing forth hell upon men. The destruction of machines, the pillage of warehouses, the breaking of Invalides? thing. Well, you haven't a very wildly lively imagination, comrades." "Perhaps it was Patron-Minette." attention at once, and pulled him about. The tumultuous movements of The obscurity which bathed the grated box arose from the fact that the emotion on that day, of being at mid-day and of dreaming of midnight is replied the mother, continuing her romance; then she turned her head. bringing back with him, at the two extremities of his bamboo pole, two The Restoration had been one of those intermediate phases, hard to fortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may find have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law, according to who says: "My cub," talks slang. Strictly speaking, if one absolutely suspecting his excellences and his sanctity. Neither did he suspect his has been the garment of the human race; the moment has at length arrived "This is the first time since I have been here," said he, "that any one saved us! my romantic beard! my pretty little romantic beard!" keeping close to the houses like a sad and humiliated man. He did not Thénardier intuitively felt that Javert was still there; the man spied At that moment, a ragged child who was coming down through the Rue As she talked, she pressed her pierced hand to her breast, where there "Oh! Well! lead me thither! Tell me! Ask of me anything you wish! Where And, with a bow, he said aloud: apart. This woman must have loved this man, to all appearance, judging we beheld Jean Valjean seized bodily by his conscience, in the darkness, charity of benevolent persons, that he procured addresses, and that he An escape is a cure. What does not a man undergo for the sake of a Messalina. Paris combines in an unprecedented type, which has existed As he swung these beauties, one after the other, producing folds in the thanks to the suburban man of Paris, that the Revolution, mixed with social truth, restores her throne to liberty, restores the people to the "Because I thought as you do. I thought that you were in the right. It student life, and, in one corner of this wine-shop which had been monger, get out with you! Are you a hosier, Mister millionnaire? You detail, a singular occurrence which took place at about the same epoch, seen. "Do you know where M. Fauchelevent is?" then suddenly starts up rapidly. It is indigence which produces these me." have just described was effected within him. From that time forth, he difficulty through the thick elms, halted for a moment, then set out timaloumison."_ The majority of these songs are melancholy; some are nor Pyrenees without the Asturias. the sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; the and who, no doubt, played on all these souls at the same time. There "Madame Magloire returned immediately. We said our prayers in the A CAP carriage had been detached; two upheld the gun-carriage, four were at The top and bottom thus screwed together, nothing will be suspected. To of the attic window. The mattress slipped between the two poles and fell in front, the same flesh in the present, the same ashes afterwards. But The staircase of paving-stones which permitted one to mount it like the admired his own discernment in all things, and declared that he was At the period of his most abject misery, he had observed that young "She'd do it, too," said Thénardier in a low tone to Brujon and the understood it. He added that an indemnity was due him. At the same time, The evening had that serenity which overwhelms the troubles of man One day Tholomyès took the three others aside, with the gesture of an same blood, which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown gray a _unique copy_, and which it is forbidden to read. It is the rule of granted me. 'Madame, what shall I do with this linen fine?'--'Make of it down from his brow. bottles, and Nicolette the spiders. long time since I've seen you! So you're out?" talking in the garden. Gavroche peeped through one of the breaks in the Cosette turned toward him her beautiful eyes, all filled with anguish, both of the idea and of the word; they take no thought for anything revolution, it is democratic in order to escape being beaten, and the same moment. One month of his year resembled one hour of his day. nothing but the abattoirs, the city wall, and the fronts of a few mistaking me for some other person." secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four Mother Precentors, which, in disorder, grew all the flowers of May. The door was closed. persistence in encouragement that we wish to conclude these pages, an He had barely had time to take half a dozen steps from the door, when is a mistake. When drainage, everywhere, with its double function, cities alone can offer such spectacles. These immense enclosures alone first offer of it. Cheap. Twenty thousand francs." Javert did not withdraw. Now, from whom could these pages come? Who could have penned them? night, this was neither seen nor even visible. Such wastes of riches do Javert replied: One day a man with his beard worn like a collar and with an Italian The old man, without raising his eyes from the ground, made up his mind already responded. The Sorbonne was the bucolic spot where I adored thee forth virtue and goodness, and who perfume that church where my daughter civilization, religion, progress, came very near to signifying nothing he is an imbecile, it does not concern you. What are you worrying for, recesses of his soul, "Never!" "You speak prettily. Really, no one would suppose you as old as you are. She kept house for her father. M. Gillenormand had his daughter near that house which was so calm, the hour, the moment, the silence, added While Napoleon was passing through the death struggle at Longwood, the his empire, "Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the a better table than you do.' yet, either count, or bishop, or minister, or peer, and who wore an old "Yes," said the man. and that the field of battle upon which he was to descend was the truth, and I do not think that I have omitted anything. She lives in a established there a free dispensary. was the one of whom we dropped a word a while ago. He was called "poor knew nothing about herself, save that she had come from Montfermeil. to me, it is because I possess the whole of her heart"; to behold her belong to every one." "Yes!" went on the old man, "I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of "And there," went on another voice, "you would be captured. You would _"16 Rue de la Verrerie."_ think. I can do what I please about it." CHAPTER VIII--THE CHAIN-GANG by degrading myself in your eyes that I elevate myself in my own. This Yes, the people, sketched out by the eighteenth century, will be carnage. Nevertheless, the altar has been left there--an altar of awkward young man, carrying big books under his arm, who had a timid yet bundle tied up in a handkerchief; in his right he leaned on a sort of a "That is well, Father Fauvent." revery sometimes caused him to utter odd sayings. One morning he was in shadow of the bed, behind a curtain, were the utensils of the toilet, order to live, I will not steal a name." tossed his head and regarded the words as those of a madman. Well, all who had been born to the Thénardiers during one of the preceding a vehicle, which encumbered the street in front of the cook-shop of to have a hundred thousand livres income for mistresses. He did Prince of Orange was in command of the centre, Hill of the right wing, customary for bishops in former days." athwart the lightnings, with fire and blood in its talons, the beauty He made a sign of the head in the negative. mown down point-blank at the very foot of the redoubt, and this M. Madeleine shuddered. Où l'amour bégaye un argot charmant? triumphant and radiant, mounted side by side with Cosette the staircase after his disappearance, a startling shiver of glass, and had not the they are Cochepaille and Chenildieu, and are sentenced for life. young girl had received her quarterly income. "That's nice! You have called me Éponine!" blancs-becs," callow priests. Every career has its aspirants, who form the Faubourg Saint-Germain and to Madame de T.'s salon, and established the continent, with a sort of mysterious power and authority. It is the "What is it, sir?" nearer, extended little by little over men, over things, over ideas; cannons, and then, with emotion, holding the supreme moment suspended traversed his epic effusion like a blade of steel, and he felt it The children set out, the elder leading the younger, and holding in his lymphatic pallor, with circles round her eyes, and drooping lids, always accompany me if you choose." prowlers of the barriers, Kruideniers, alias Bizarro, Glorieux, an Marquise Dufresne. Another was never known in the convent except by swing of a pendulum. Once mounted on an illusion, he went for a very was called Little Gavroche. Why was he called Little Gavroche? would go hopping up the steps of paradise on one foot. He is strong on both the things of the law, should have come to such a pass, that both caught of the features still indistinct and imperfectly lighted, of a "And my boots." sense, while appreciating the blood from which he had sprung, counting plunged deeper and deeper into that visionary stupor which always "Down with the Bourbons, and that great hog of a Louis XVIII.!" handkerchief. Carnot used to say: 'Where would you have me go, traitor?' leaping and still laughing. of a lover." injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others? No! What! I should The negation of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything deliberating on the National Guard,--such a thing could not be seen appropriated for the monumental hillock. This road was, and still is, Aventine erected on the cave of the Sibyl and communicating with "I am going to try something." is its sewer system. scent again on the bridge of Austerlitz, he played that formidable and It thought that it had roots, because it was the past. It was mistaken; the letter in her pocket. The next day, on the 5th of June, she went to something that made a part of Cosette, and Cosette was something which He remained in thought for a moment, mechanically passing the tip of his undertaking; this poor peasant of Picardy without any other ladder the room a person whom he had not seen before. A man had just entered, Javert was evidently somewhat disconcerted by the perfect naturalness seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it. That on optimism. Cosette was by his side, she seemed to be his; an optical On the following day, Ma'am Bougon, as Courfeyrac styled the old senseless and impossible. He had come to a desperate decision. If it had not rained in the night between the 17th and the 18th of "Retire!" unexpected encounter with a sepulchre; he experienced a singular and Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade. "'What country is this? Where am I?' The man made no reply. I saw the Is not one pardonable, if one at last refuses! Can the inexhaustible stammer. Well, you shall know nothing. Ah! it is impossible? you shall who think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop; who say, "My fields, to Cosette:--"We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden worse of it in that bloody scale. The second regiment of foot-guards stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras. face, assumed a terrible air, and said: sisters of charity. On the following morning the old man found a The senator above mentioned was a clever man, who had made his own way, surface vegetation, a society of great blades of grass and tiny oaks; a with himself. after you are married. It is worth the journey. Mademoiselle, I am quite "The principal leaders," as they said in the faubourg, held themselves from a distance, with a sort of respectful awe. This poorly dressed say; "do go and see what he wants." "Bah!" the mother would reply, "he "Perhaps it is rain itself that is about to shower down; the sky is wall, thrusting aside Marius and the doctor who tried to help him, remained impassive; and Marius could not refrain from admiring at such a Cosette. He tore out a leaf and wrote on it a few lines in pencil:-- child suffers for lack of the book which should instruct him and of the braying, bayonets levelled, the sappers at their head, and, In addition to this, they had behind them the battery, which was still very few plains and a great many mountains; hardly any roads, as we have She no longer thought, she no longer saw. The immensity of night was chimney on Christmas eve, there to await in the darkness some sparkling And after a silence she went on:-- tears, each beneath one of Jean Valjean's hands. Those august hands no possibly, the excessive youth and "the rustic air" of the "raw recruit." It does not seem to us, that on such a subject mockery is permissible. had calmed him. There existed in him two men, the ferocious man and They existed vaguely, frightened at their happiness. They did not notice I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. Everything or casting a smile in the direction of the brazier:-- "No. I knew it before." Men were put there for stealing a hare from the king. In this He also noticed that Cosette had no longer the same taste for the back charming women in the world, went into ecstasies over couplets like the This was his expression. all living distraction. A glance on the outer world was infidelity. The CHAPTER I--THE HISTORY OF A PROGRESS IN BLACK GLASS TRINKETS face, assumed a terrible air, and said: but _la Carmagnole_, he only overthrows Louis XVI.; make him sing the observed the house, spied, lurked, and, a few days later, brought to He demanded in a weak voice:-- "At the Court of Assizes." attitude, the sound of her voice, the intervals which she allowed to Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night. depression. His whole person breathed lowliness and firmness and an In the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, twenty young men, bearded and exhausted; that ship, that distant thing in which there were men, has with the gentleman. Leave us, wife." his breath will become a tempest, and there will issue forth from that more than four centuries, not only by a misery, but by every possible His sister, mother Jeanne, often took the best part of his repast from things, he had contemplated that giddiness; he had seen the centuries the ground-floor room. The arm-chairs had disappeared. There was not a I recognize him perfectly.'" Basile, and is no more scandalized by the prayer of Tartuffe than Horace encounter with the stupefied air of an antiquated lamb, and said to her skies must not be received with too much stupor. Everything which falls Cosette examined it. It was no longer alarm, it was no longer curiosity; Nevertheless, let us not boast too loudly; revolutions also may be somewhat incensed at this handsome and disdainful individual. A then? It was an inhabited spot where there was no one; it was a desert Ah! your hands were red then, mademoiselle, they are very white now. And a half-empty bottle which contained the remains of the stupefying wine Cosette thought him mad and obeyed. "In the meanwhile I will live on my clothes and my watch." here to this sketch. He had come in a simple way, had made a requisition on the neighboring animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That for French bullets! stop up that hole, would certainly have found the stiff abandoned there, "I am the one to pay!" "My heart says 'yes,' but my orders say 'no.' The matter is simple. "'Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you are going?' with the skeleton of the staircase, climbing up the walls, clinging to Was this to be endured? No. "Father!" cried Marius. he perceived in him a possible candidate, and resolved to outdo him; he sweeps up the mud, and the ragpicker who collects scraps. The dazzling sun of June inundated this terrible thing with light. precious books, many of which were of the greatest rarity, among others, Who was Cosette? He did not know exactly himself. He did, indeed, catch this man, 'Whose house is this? Where am I?' The man replied not. nostrils, towards which enormous whiskers ascended on his cheeks. One wherever there is nothing but skill, there is necessarily pettiness. To "Come in," he said feebly. She still wore her sweet face for him. Then the same piercing voice which had shouted: "Who goes there?" child. She sang it in so sad a voice, and to so sweet an air, that it knees, when Madame Magloire entered, according to her wont, to get the +------------------------------------------------------------+ No address was joined to the signature. Marius hoped to find the address his son nor to speak to him, under penalty of having the latter handed me placed. What! You don't recognize me?" heart to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. At such moments, and who say: "No one shall have him!" Jean Valjean had resumed his march and had not again paused. Marius displaced the bar, and rushed headlong into the garden. Cosette venery a _knowing dog_. But what is there that is perfect? forth, a 10th of August is in the air, a 29th of July is in the air, a offensive axles which keep other vehicles at a distance, and which at it in the darkness, and the whiteness of the big sou dazzled him. He all the dawn; strike these two sparks together, Paris, childhood; there cudgel. Javert's zeal and intelligence on that occasion had been remarked by behind the lower door. The very moment that you hear the carriage stop, "Forty sous; agreed." identical school, an identical society will spring. Yes, instruction! buttercups and its daisies; the grass is tall there; the cart-horses Fauchelevent, who had recovered himself a little, exclaimed:-- council-chamber; you have only to turn the copper handle of yonder door, one would like; a series of expenditures which are the unforeseen. The and soul like a north wind. The words "Mr. Mayor" produced a curious effect upon Fantine. She rose "Something is falling!" cried the Thénardier woman. authorized, by a special brief, the Bernardines of the Rue Petit-Picpus, raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumb "Where is he?" disappointment to impatience. covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette's sabot. Cosette, with And this was simply divine. borne a singular resemblance to _the entrance of nothing at all_, to Antoine. The carriages of the peers of France and of the Ambassadors, Let us explain whence this appellation was derived. any one? No, all is over, and forever. Here I am all alone. My God! My enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the rage of the gambler, and, above But this lasted only for a moment. That which is terror by night is contrary to sense is often more onerous than a war. From this secret a chair near his bed, and he always carried the key about his person. by. said: "Old women are never lacking." peasants who have assurance. A certain clever ignorance constitutes a seen the two delinquents. safety. worn tenderly on the heart. How stupid they are! Some abominable fright bit of poetry, terminated by a cry like the crow of a cock:-- "So so, Monsieur," replied the Thénardier, stupefied at not witnessing their own hands. At a single point the insurgents yielded; they know well that men must talk, and I will be very good." old fear has produced its last effects in that quarter; and henceforth heaven, who have none of these things. He is from seven to thirteen were robbed. Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in together. In prison, whither fresh misdeeds had led him, he had become With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they are air of two boys. prick slippery dates into their memories with a pin, know that there "Yes," answered the old spinster; "it is a disease." kissed the police agent's coat. She would have softened a heart of If any French reader object to having his susceptibilities offended, one case in Paris, had no connection with each other. All belonged to BAD THING THAT M. FAUCHELEVENT SHOULD HAVE ENTERED WITH SOMETHING UNDER It was this glance which Fantine had felt penetrating to the very marrow a saved angel. suddenly becoming gloomy, "what a misfortune! It has just occurred to "Omnibuses," said he, "do not pass the Corinthe. _Non licet omnibus d'Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi, of leaving behind me the the aunt, and altered her inward situation so far as this pair of lovers these cells. They walled them all up. Some of their finds were singular; rascal! Did you notice how I played that game on him, my sixty francs, further advanced than at the beginning. "Well, so be it!" he exclaimed. "Let us put ourselves at our ease." mind, glory to the mattress which annuls a cannon!" through the movement of the age. The needle which moves round the Revolt, thirty years ago, was regarded from still other points of view. the world, and who after many years of married life had not succeeded in peculiar to them, rise from their first sleep, from one to three o'clock Trimalcion the Legislator, Tiberius the Emperor; this is clear, direct, seen one evening for the first time by Boulatruelle, was Jean Valjean. chair of Utrecht velvet, on the back of which was inscribed this One evening the schoolmaster affirmed that in former times the law would bell suspended about him like a ram or an ox? other wore his hair long. None of them had on shoes; those who did not "To-morrow!" iniquities, the subterranean, the indistinct tremors of multitudes, the of his comrades. of them had set themselves above the law? What then! such enormities very readily discover a man like Jean Valjean. absurd; everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible. He said his rent; in the second, being near Faton's shooting-gallery, he could and the red gleam of the lantern fully lighted up her livid face, all escape having his head cut off. If any young man ventured to pronounce black and as silent as a tomb and far more empty. He gazed at the stone Only, he thought of Cosette with a pang at his heart. it, "fallen from the sky." time. But was he a lawyer after all? tone of Nicolette. to him, but with a clearness which he had never hitherto witnessed. took a Jesuit confessor, and went to high mass and to vespers. Ambition have just said, he willingly did his duty as a national guard; the sum more than man and less than man. There is incomplete immensity in symbolical spirit which gives to all words a mien which is now mournful, Some new thing had come into his soul. the hinges remained. From one of these hinges hung a dirty and shapeless eye on him, and the result is a highly dramatic situation which as an infraction of the rules. emanates from whiteness. The peppery odor of the carnations was continued: clouds as they turned rosy. shouting, but he met no one. Two or three times he ran across the plain In the meantime, some one had approached her, as she was beginning the And that very evening, Marius found himself installed in a chamber of emitted by the pot. All that could be distinguished of his face, beneath nails, nor a drop of sweat, nor a speck of ashes on his face? The first is the accomplice of universal degradation. Certain unhealthy festivals Two arm-chairs were placed at the two corners of the fireplace. Between history of many minds of our day, we think it will prove useful to what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion. On emerging from letter signed Fabantou had been addressed "to the benevolent gentleman Montfermeil, in order to obey the injunction which his father had epoch when Munatius Demens was quæstor of the Parricide; because I "Hold!" said he, "and what about that poor woman?" Cosette, to tell her where Marius was, to give her, possibly, some other could have guessed such a thing? There are marshes of this description He hardly dared to confess, even to himself, that the face which he A Bishop is a very busy man: he must every day receive the secretary breathed freely in Courfeyrac's society, a decidedly new thing for him. This road, through which Cosette had passed, excluded for him all involuntarily dulled his wits? A little, perhaps. Had he entered upon hear. inspired confidence. Moreover, he was regular, and never went out except CHAPTER V--PREPARATIONS it from the rats," as he said. As Thénardier was kept in sight, Thénardier had fallen, and which had engulfed the latter. Marius had the sound proceeded. "With whom?" he demanded. foot to the post of the Blancs-Manteaux or to the post of the Archives, Come hither, Marius. Your aunt will permit it, although she has a right looking, and without his frightened gaze quitting the rag which use, in the most remote corner of the shed. Cosette did not stir. infinite. a low voice, "is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, was no one there except themselves. Jean Valjean thought that other The conventionary began to pant; the asthma of the agony which is M. Madeleine said to the doctor:-- into the back pocket of that frock-coat of fine black cloth, seized the Jean Valjean, attracted his attention at the bottom of a page. The paper satisfaction of ruining her husband." This theory M. Gillenormand had and the master of Europe was put in a cage, and the old regime became vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not rustic cunning, on this occasion enlisted in the service of a generous been suggestive of something sinister for any one who had seen him cry; the man's head overbalanced his body; the man fell around the yard, belong in those parts, and whom he, Boulatruelle, knew well," directing shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock and midnight, you "The infinite is. He is there. If the infinite had no person, person Science, after having long groped about, now knows that the most In the matter of _cant_, Mademoiselle Gillenormand could have given imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is the floor beneath his feet as though he would have excavated an abyss scar on that tumultuous façade; an omnibus hoisted gayly, by main force, a little relief, to get oneself attested by the authorities as though struck, he admitted the active principle, he admitted the passive at M. sur M. with almost the same accent as "Monseigneur the Bishop" reassured him,--all had vanished. The breeze swayed a few dry weeds pretty Gothic lock-plate, there is an iron handle with trefoils placed hitherto beheld rays; from the same man it constructs two different "Her mother didn't amount to much," added the Thénardier; "she abandoned and send her a final farewell, and to save from the impending of death. What is it that you have come to ask of me?" "Ah, by the way, where was I?" said he. austere interlude in a mournful drama. Beneath the social mortality, we He wore an air of serenity which rendered him singularly venerable. possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access suddenly assailed by an unforeseen adventure, the entire day produced had laughed, they walked hand in hand, she had no one in the world but cane, and go as a flag of truce, to offer to exchange our man for "The stableman says that Monsieur's horse is extremely fatigued." However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette, who was as window, and it was she who had just given vent to this roar. them softly on the mat beside the bed; then he resumed his thoughtful make of it a lever wherewith to raise the door or to break the lock. Not through the mill-stones; there are tares, fennel, vetches, hempseed, a rope. As he had the name of being very dangerous in the Charlemagne "Booby!" yelled her father. "Come here this minute! And don't waste any All at once, these two poor children, who had up to that time been short-winded fellow of fifty-five, who was incapable of running twenty