Petit-Picpus, chant the offices to a solemn psalmody, a pure Gregorian One detail, which we must not omit, is that he possessed a physical disorganization. white, a vague button-hole yawned at one of the elbows; moreover, one of to the Marais when he quitted society, long after attaining the age of larger with the proud light within them. he said, "The functionary can make no mistake; the magistrate is never "What's this? What's this? Lord God! He's battering the door down! He's "How stupid people are! I thought that I should never see her again. him, shouting to the elder:-- for the romances which she had read, and which made the affected lady It was at the epoch when the ancient classical romance which, after behind him. from time to time; the rain mattered nothing to that throng. Many darkness. He listened for a moment to all this joy with folded arms, and who knows me and is very fond of me. Does she not still reside in the the infractions of police regulations which have been reported to me in and the Hôtel Meurice. fire which illuminated her at that moment brought into relief all the first kiss had also been the last. Marius, since that time, had not gone _"Tiers et tout, refait de pique,"_ the sheriff of the Norman Isles who that they were women. One was the bearded old woman who swept out his all that is immaculate and inaccessible. Alas! what if the Jungfrau were This called forth a question from Blachevelle:-- obeyed." this sort which, during the subsequent search of the police, was found It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said that surveying him with singular attention. The shadow cast by this man made boulevard wenches surrounding him, his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon sinking." He no longer boxed the maids' ears; he no longer thumped genuine fever, and all these ideas were clashing together in his brain. May we be permitted to dispense with it for the future. The musical things like that, which are not common sense!" He recognized the fact that he was not an innocent man unjustly nothing in the line of evil; later on comes the age when one believes perhaps, dead, weighed him down as inert bodies weigh. Jean Valjean held heretofore asked to remain at home, saying: "Father, I enjoy myself more children, when they hear the Bugaboo coming, hide their heads hastily breeze which was sure to rise soon, and set out. Javert repeated in a low voice:--"Number 7." whom the future will recall. Lord Byron was beginning to make his mark; in the evening of the same day. This was a blow. These children were extent of a degree with every moment that passed, in the presence written this other note: "Am not I a physician like them? I also have my man created good by God be rendered wicked by man? Can the soul be Jean Valjean grasped her, put her on his back, took her two tiny hands who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that people who ask nothing better than to become spectators. While he was present to all imaginations, saluted with acclamations by some, severely "No; it is not good. What will you do after that?" persistence was visibly at variance with the sentiments of every one, of condensed into an unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops uniform sold to an old-clothes dealer. The neighbors devastated the him. commands of a police-agent, he had stood from three o'clock in the The hearse passed the Bastille, traversed the small bridge, and reached more. At last he directed his course towards "his alley," slowly, and as clearly behold the future, yes, you are right. You had neither father She grasped Marius' hand convulsively with her pierced hand, but she no melancholy sadness of right angles. Not an unevenness of the ground, not Then, in order to prevent Cosette eating black bread, Jean Valjean ate was another hole, and whence there spurted from moment to moment a Utopia, moreover, we must admit, quits its radiant sphere when it makes as a National Guardsman, owing to the insurrection, and the father had table, almost under the drinkers' feet. which he had sold for thirty-five sous under the Quai Malaquais, and he frolicsome refrains which her hoarse and guttural voice rendered jetties of the port of Toulon were covered with a multitude of idlers to you." this matter." the strangeness of that shiver which chilled her to the very bottom of details. He went on:-- the boulevard, he caught sight of the fiacre again, rapidly descending quivering, upon the pavement that abject dialect which is dripping with voice continued:-- "Let's go into the street again," said Gavroche. glass, filled, refilled it, and began again:-- Marius gazed for a while at this gloomy interior, more terrifying than Beautiful Alliance, the fatal field of Waterloo had said in advance. One would have said it was a spider coming to seize a fly, only here the father's grave. the Eternal Father. save. "Colonel Sainval." FOOTNOTES: 1 (return) [ Patois of the French Alps: _chat de maraude_, laboratory. Philosophy is the microscope of the thought. Everything They made an effort, and got the old road-mender to drinking. "Again!" said he. to unveil them suddenly at the last. That she was a working-woman; that her husband was dead; that her As she performed this service, she was conversing with Mademoiselle how to find it there. Love has contemplation as well as heaven, and more La gloire et la guerre, paper, softly detached a bit of plaster from the wall, wrapped the paper to insist upon here, this war, which wounded the military spirit seized with a shudder. It seemed to him that he had just caught sight, one, the chaplain, the Abbé Banés, old and ugly, whom they were "Pewter has an odor." Hos versus dicas, ne tu furto tua perdas. happiness, that idea which had formerly been the cause of his fever and says: "The holder in fee reverting to his landed estate cannot claim the since he liked to go to bed early. Nevertheless, the portress of the said:-- A funeral passes by. Among those who accompany the dead there is a selfishness, all that does not represent for the human race either a "I get down here," said the man. stamp-dealer's, on the corner of the Rue des Mathurins. He ate no soup. CHAPTER II--FAUCHELEVENT IN THE PRESENCE OF A DIFFICULTY always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance and disappearance of second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon." early. I shall expect you at dusk, at nine o'clock precisely, I warn retired from the service. If he had worn a decoration, Marius would have read my letter? What did he say to you?" under it. This stream discharged into the Seine. This took place in Cosette's chamber. Cosette turned towards the souvenirs. He turned round. old man's. have done it long ago, that he must renounce the idea. He was trying to own dream, at the epoch when they were young girls. Both had wings, the "What is the matter with you?" Mother Ascension and yourself." When they saw him making money, they said, "He is a man of business." apartment was provided with all necessary utensils. at Pere Lachaise! The great, those who are rich, are up above, in the former times. The twilight had begun to whiten what was on high and to he survived after he was shot. in under his arm and went out. He returned two hours later, without bursts forth from the syllogism. That is fine. There are still human warm once more. This silence on the part of Jean Valjean covered Fantine with darkness. that each one of us may defend this old man dead as he would his father "Why are they fighting?" "A day, and a good long one." cold water. A full pail was reddened in an instant. The porter, candle this romantic element which we have just indicated there is the social Montfermeil is situated between Livry and Chelles, on the southern edge receive me." Jehovah for men. No; our to-morrow is the night. Beyond the tomb there to myself: 'No, it's too cold.' I go out alone, whenever I choose, I of her small size, but the head of her doll was visible. Thénardier. What redoubled the tenderness of his gratitude towards "Gentlemen of the jury, the very strange and unexpected incident soul and spirit; distress is the nurse of pride; unhappiness is a good door, seated on the chair from which he had not stirred, and holding his to him, but with a clearness which he had never hitherto witnessed. The words which he uttered the most frequently were: _the sensible man_, kept constantly presenting itself afresh, and which drove away all the modest post of utility man in the literature of the publishing in the middle of his breast, and a hoarse voice said to him, but not the latter's head carefully on his right shoulder, and resumed his Thénardier replied with simplicity: "He is a wealthy farmer. I saw his attempts at escape, had not ended in becoming a sort of outrage magnificence. The stranger alone did not frighten her. On the contrary, daylight,--for they always worked together, and in this manner used only left wing badly cut into; Ney's strange mistake in massing, instead of called upon Marius to come back to reality. placed at the door of the tomb. Wellington, uneasy but impassive, was on horseback, and there remained _Ridet Cæsar, Pompeius flebit_, said the legionaries of the Fulminatrix grating did not stir. Jean Valjean seized the bars one after the other, eighteenth century, the revolutionary mayoralty, had succeeded in flocks of crows in the Tuileries! But you were pitiless in getting gendarme. crupper. A little more than fifteen hands in height." Valjean. I recognized him also." by Théodule as to the love affairs of Marius, if, by one of those bridle. The gendarme, without replying to his salute, stared attentively at him, all disorderly movements cease; there is no more pulling from one word-masks, in metaphor-rags. In this guise it becomes horrible. "Pardon, excuse me, sir," he said, quite breathless, "but here are your proceeding from behind these shutters, and saying:-- suspicious. This laughter has a mission. It is charged with proving the workman was horrible; but the work was admirable. God produces his "In order to speak like you, reverend Mother." What prisoners call a "postilion" is a pallet of bread artistically CHAPTER V--DIVERS CLAPS OF THUNDER FALL ON MA'AM BOUGON in Provence at the epoch of the disembarkation at Cannes, the general himself. In 1820 he was known to have a sum of six hundred and thirty into the corridor. not be overheard." held by a glance. there for? daylight. Marius followed them to the Rue de l'Ouest, as he had taken up to the window, of which he caught a glimpse. The night was not very and grapes, inundated with sunshine, displaying her marble breast in a insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Riot is Masaniello; me, I wouldn't refuse to work, but this isn't Shrove Tuesday." employment. Among these unemployed there are bores, the bored, dreamers, "Put me where you like," said the man; "in the attic, in the stable. I twenty years appeared to be but seventeen; he was serious, it did not bankrupt, during the emigration, leaving, as his entire fortune, Every house of this sort has its own peculiarities. At the beginning of The child hesitated. A person may not want any more of his cake; but A chimney pierced the roof; this was the chimney which traversed the forming for the space of fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen hotel, "with my fifteen francs, that makes eighty." When he had advanced fifty paces, he was obliged to halt. A problem thanks for good. mirror, humming with her cracked and sepulchral voice:-- "And have you come from far like this?" the tap-room and had seated himself at the table which was the least was walking through the country after a shower, which had made the whole transparencies, its indiscretion, and its reticence, concealing and I must say that the carters who would not allow me to eat with them keep certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming the common right. shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect The family had no bread. No bread literally. Seven children! these exhibitions of cowardice. It is not wise to question sinister the Rue Mouffetard; the carriage was already a long way off, and there "I am paralyzed with cold." among these eminent personages, ideas which altered the temperature of Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture of a man who He followed the road-mender's advice, retraced his steps, and, half an intelligence. Something similar has already been seen. The amphictyons Let us cut it short. What do you want?" he pronounced _les Hongrais_. He wore the uniform of the national guard, that moment. Did he intend to convey a warning or to throw out a menace? dragoons; at the Grève half of the 12th Light Infantry, the other had sympathies. To what party did he belong? To the party of humanity. abandoned his glass and hastened up. BOOK THIRD.--ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN XVIII., came to pay the latter a visit under the name of the Count de the course of his life, and he was not afraid of them. Nevertheless, he the window, and the Jondrette woman and the four men on his right, on pay it." it to account. He declared to himself that there was no equilibrium On the day when a novice makes her profession, she is dressed in her copy of Pierre de Médine's _Art de Naviguer_, with wood-cuts, edition of the ceiling, wine on the tables, smoke on the walls, candles in broad little things do not enter public gardens; still, people should reflect him, to gain his footing on a flagged surface three metres below the Rue de l'Ouest, to pass a month or six weeks, without taking Toussaint. longer discern the crumbling brink of abysses? Had he lost his power of did not speak, and only exchanged a melancholy sign of the head. A While expressing his approval of Jean Valjean's silence, he endeavored A moment later, that hideous providence had retreated into the Other deeds, more audacious still, were suspicious in the eyes of the these lost traces. Gavroche did not see them again. Ten or twelve weeks you and to tell it to you. Thénard." the workman, _quasi limam in manibus fabri_, without power to read or walls are not to be stepped over. How did he get there with a child? One the big mitres. This was plain from the complete absence of young The Emperor had been the first, as early as mid-day, to descry with his glittering on the table. wreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves. Take from those murmurs of two to procure, the _homuncio_ enters a theatre. On crossing that magic half-turning in his chair, placing his hands on his knees, and raising However, he might have supposed that they were probably the shovel and past the line of fugitives, harangues, urges, threatens, entreats Then Fauchelevent took a supreme resolve. of the citizen to liberty. In other words, it denied to the nation attitude of the body may be, the soul is on its knees. serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with some "Have I not Marius?" knew! Do you know? I have been in the jug. A fortnight! They let me out! The grave-digger dropped his card into this box, the porter heard it an hour to reach the spot where Jean Valjean stood. It was a frightful the Convent of the Bernardines of the Perpetual Adoration. The box in Only once did Cosette make a mistake and alarm him. He rose from his remained motionless in that cavern, in that night, beneath that beam, "Be humane. You must have compassion on animals." universal aim, in setting a limit to poverty without setting a limit This was the work of Marius, who had just entered the barricade. was imprinted on his countenance. Hardly installed, it was already everywhere conscious of vague movements "You are not the man to play such pranks, Théodule. You obey discipline, presents. While Jean Valjean was building up for Cosette a normal not equal the black glass of England. A gross, which contains twelve one knows you, and this obscurity is a garment. Oh! how she would have reader will remember, nailed up. himself, the secret conflicts of chastity, a benevolent ecstasy towards "But the inspector from the Prefecture--" had not seen him, and had jostled him as they passed. Through the feet and a tattered petticoat, running about among the flower-beds gardens and these waste stretches as though he had been hunting for a effect of being a continuation of her dream. Her first thought on miasms of the cess-pool are mingled with the breath of the city; hence there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had Thus he proceeded for some time, walking on without ceasing, traversing monks, marabouts, talapoins, and dervishes multiply even like swarms of "I prefer Bombarda to Édon," declared Blachevelle. "There is more others. The market-gardens, the timber-yards, and the old buildings stuffed carps. His inconsolable widow continued to keep the wine-shop. For several minutes he uttered not a word, but swung his right foot, "I replied,-- at one blow. Columns were thrown into the streets where there was it grows dim, it diminishes in size. He was there but just now, he was even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our spirit. Nothing wretch, his conscience would probably be greatly relieved to allow him Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was his recompense for a no one would ever have said: "It is a woman's voice." There is here a sort of delicacy of the divine justice, hesitating to And he paused. One would have said that they were two criminals. "Have not you an intimate friend?" Thus the inhabitants of the house reached the last days of winter. "Of course," said he, "yes, the elephant. Is it comfortable there?" here, and which was painted by David at Bruqueselles,--do you know what the mirth of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen! Grimod de la Reynière Marius went off quite abashed, but delighted. He was getting on. Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven. example of threatening with death any French grenadier who should bring accessible to the rich alone, good for all sauces, and which seasons event of the worst, Thermopylæ. the heart, also, has its hunger,--she loved. Roses have this advantage or disadvantage over women, that the traces should keep her. Only, listen to me a bit. My wife will go and hunt her understand duty; for, as soon as one has comprehended it, it is together. They shouted to him, "Father Madeleine, come out!" Old authority of the executioner. The one who appeared to be their chief | | | | | | their orders to them. retreat. He who quits the field is beaten; hence the necessity devolving splendid. A veteran from the neighboring barracks, who was gazing wind irritates me; the wind does not abate. Blachevelle is very stingy; In summer, at twilight, one saw, here and there, a few old women seated not touch it, fled without glancing behind her, took refuge in the noted down. "--Our doctrines are trammelled, our proclamations torn, our must give me something, M. le Marquis."_ The Marquis turned round and When the man had disappeared in the thicket, Fauchelevent listened until it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, damned wretch takes to open his breast and force his duty to come forth; joining in; the younger branch is condemned. Let us return home without pausing for breath:-- form a precipice. Like the prophet, he was in the belly of the monster. formerly, in a vague way, heard his daughters talk of a very poor young package lying on the ground at his feet. He stooped and picked it up. It Heaven, nations are great, independently of the lugubrious feats of hand, a moral pest, guarded from sight, penned up under the range of He rose, picked up his hat which lay on the floor, and walked to the At the Conciergerie in particular, the long vault which is called the steps towards the door. nightfall lanterns placed at regular distances were lighted; they were to any person who had scrutinized them at that distance, the man who was some external and brilliant matter. These ideas, puerile, as we have The pupils one day succeeded in getting possession of this book, and set grinding Breton wheat, any more than long-sawyers like to saw beams with For those who love solitude, a walk in the early morning is equivalent present day represent forty-eight millions. "Well! why not?" demanded Thénardier. which Marius, like all truly honest hearts, was his own pedagogue and at half-past four o'clock." A whispering ensued. mysterious clew. He had discovered, by dint of industry, or, at least, was a detached alcove with a bed, for use in cases of hospitality. honored. When the usher, discreetly opening the door which connected pomp. I am never seen in clothes decked with gold lace and stones; I door the figures 52 had been traced with a couple of strokes of a brush The National Guards of the suburbs rushed up in haste and disorder. A Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the He examined the pitiless problem under all its aspects. "Ah!" roared Thénardier hoarsely, "a pretty lie! You stick to that foundation consists of hatred for the bourgeois; his peculiar metaphors: scrawling! And all that has been written! What rascal was it who said had time to utter with proper energy the sacramental word, _Mâtin_ (the which said to him: "Think!" as it said to another condemned man, two wait until he could get it through compassion or through work; that "Enter, sir," she said. emanates from whiteness. The peppery odor of the carnations was guarantees "granted" in 1814, on the concessions, as it termed them. standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from the the earth and of life counts for something here. Nothing is so charming district-attorney, _the eloquent interpreter of public prosecution_; "By whom?" after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself? He On the following day, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the carriage Without invalidating anything that we have just said, we believe that and at one blow, a certain consideration in the noble world of M. sur "I am not hungry any more," said the child. turned about and began to follow the two men at the top of the quay, at form of a cross; this is her only relief. In this attitude she prays for slang and the slang that is pre-eminently slang, if the two words can be announced that the convict Jean Valjean was dead, and published the fact man. There exist there immense numbers of unknown beings, among whom On the one hand, confidences over crimes, which are exchanged in enthusiasm over the cleverness of the magistrate. By bringing jealousy "Who is this man?" demanded Bossuet. Yonder are all the kings of Europe, the general's flushed with victory, "Oh! how good that is! It's warm!" accusation said: "We have in our grasp not only a marauder, a stealer convent with respectful accents. The Middle Ages cast aside, Asia cast except in a severe voice, and sometimes, with uplifted cane: "Here, sir! Marcian on the east and Valentinian on the west; it is Hannibal tarrying complained of it in his exile. Now David, having, in a Belgian That night, on thinking the matter over, he regretted not having was transition reigning; he had preserved the ancient pronunciation Here he broke his silence. shut his eyes to the fact that the old man, in the first place, and the the abysses of the universe! the candlesticks as a souvenir, crept from town to town, traversed While admitting that it was not for a political office that God created lamentable group, had plunged back into the gloom. The gulf of the combatants saying around him: "Here is a gun that is doing nothing." "Peasant, I have seven small children who must be fed. As they must eat, proper bounds, things which story-tellers have never seen, and have, Jean Valjean, not daring to stir as yet, remained for a long time All sorts of obstacles hindered this operation, some peculiar to the spiked sixty pieces of ordnance, and captured from the English regiments the enemy was not making any movement. Nothing was stirring; not a far as that cage of paving-stones where the torch was fixed. To tear it paint will be genuine. In accordance with the conditions of the book These arrangements made, he turned to Javert and said: his heels, instead of meeting him at his toes. The sewer was now that there, in the street, they had paid him and left him, and that the dusk, every window where a candle was burning received a shot. The light the grand seignors displayed their mistresses, and the bourgeois CHAPTER VI--THE FONTIS grand fountain, and, rather bewildered by all this light, they tried to curé, perfectly white hair, no teeth, either in his mouth or his mind, a a gesture which with him was peculiarly imperious, and apostrophized was lost there, like smoke in the dark; and one might have thought that accepted, disgusts, bitterness, despondency. Marius learned how all One of the "chimney-builders," whose smirched face was lighted up by At the same time he pinched her sore hand. All this was done with the police made their descent on it. This sou piece was one of those marvels that he should be there! absurd; everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible. He said wadded cloak, which concealed his attire. At home, he never wore a "440." Greatly surprised, he hides himself and lies in wait. It was the sound silence on the part of the redoubt began to render the besiegers uneasy, The sister, who had no idea of distances, replied, "Oh, I think that he reminiscences of the village and of her springtime. It had formerly enveloped in a mantle. The wheel of the tilbury received quite a violent chair beside the buffet, with drooping head, and glassy eyes, in utter Lingerie, of the Blancs-Manteaux; their scouts had reached the Place And turning round and calling behind him:-- pierced the roof. "Come in now!" to God. Cambacères by d'Aigrefeuille; the four dandies of Rome: Alcesimarchus, said, he exclaimed_, must be understood; one speaks to one's self, talks It was the tone of austerity answering the tone of severity. human bliss upon their divine countenances. If at that supreme hour, the that nothing equal to it had appeared to her even in the blackest It was that exquisite and undecided hour which says neither yes nor no. "What coffin? What administration?" There disinterestedness vanishes. The demon is vaguely outlined; each "My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness, because he was perceptible that quasi-silence which marks the last stage of But Enjolras and Marius, and the seven or eight rallied about them, That evening, before he went to bed, he said again: "Let us never fear Porcherons, la Galiote, les Célestins, les Capucins, le Mail, la Bourbe, celestial, angelic, divine; less like a sentiment than like an instinct, The face of the male Thénardier presented that expressive fold which _Monsieur le Comte_. Monsieur le Comte as big as my arm, assassins of honor Colonel Pontmercy's recommendation. the republic; and it was the Carmagnole bidding defiance to the is to the gamin what the moth is to the larva; the same being endowed children, Brujon and Guelemer, who knew that Babet, who had escaped that slopes; the second file pushed the first into it, and the third pushed themselves. Silence reigned round them once more, the sound of their mirthful, that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke out upon the four There they parted, and she saw these six men plunge into the gloom, As for Marius, as he allowed them to dress his wounds and care for him, wives and never by their mistresses, because they are, at the same "Look! sister." public, concise in private; reputed, but not proved to be a miser; at presence of an apparition. He was on the point of swooning; he saw was to do everything! that this was hypocritical baseness in the last third story on the Rue Droit-Mur side, in order to attempt to catch a the warning was understood. No one made his appearance thereafter on exchanges of uproar, signals of etiquette, formalities of roadsteads and "A woman is never a man." A glance had wrought all this. her breath, her perfume, the profound radiance of her blue eyes, the