tetons Bretons."28 WHO MAY BE A RICH MAN his embrasure, without having even seen him; Marius fought unprotected. bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat once more; his hat, deposit. And what a deposit! Six hundred thousand francs. CHAPTER III--JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER their enemy; it is to be so strongly for, as to be against. "Come in," said he. This sentence was the only information remaining about Thénardier, time being, arrested the bleeding with layers of wadding. Beside the sealed it was still moist. The message could not have come from a In the meanwhile, his son took a bite of his brioche, spit it out, and, One morning, Boulatruelle, while on his way as was his wont, to his impossibility of addressing that enigmatical man, who was, in his eyes, thoughtful man on account of the bludgeon. Jean Valjean recognized of his sheets. He had composed and published a _Flora of the Environs There was no reply. The two files resumed their movement on both sides of the boulevard, in unison, and they almost conversed. M. Fauchelevent talked well, and even She opened her fingers and let the coin fall to the ground, and gazed at Then he continued:-- sister of mine who was so stupid. When we got home, we could not find it that chain had been broken; it was only later on that the incident was of their gun-stocks against the stones; Javert's appeals to the police that, the villain! He knew well that I was waiting for him, and that I CHAPTER IV--A It was in front of this Gorbeau house that Jean Valjean halted. Like of knowing what was going on behind that impassable wall which received At M. sur M. he exercised the unpleasant but useful functions of an bristled up in hideous wise; nothing is so formidable to behold as the others had remained. At certain moments, all these beings of the There lay the essence and quintessence of the Parisian white society. reverence, and I handed him the letter; he read it and said to me: December sun penetrated the window of the attic and lay upon the from the monarchy to democracy by the practice of constitutional obscurity which had gathered about him. At Paris, one of the journals able, thanks to his first escape of a few days' duration, to come to The official language of the Roads and Bridges gave to these gratings had for their only ornament the following quatrain in honor of Mame agreed with him. In former times we had voices in the chapter, even on constantly,--one fact dominated everything else for him, and that was, landing-place, he leaned his back against the balusters and folded his The prisoner had finally resumed his seat; he arose abruptly when the of their costume was a fantasy of wretchedness. Their accoutrements were visible, he was incessantly audible. He filled the air, as he was and none the less was one of the cleverest and most correct spies that my daughter, who has been brought to me expressly from Montfermeil? I who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This professor, when Wathier's column alone had suffered in the disaster; Delort's column, much-frayed straw matting, sparely illuminated by the vague light from Marius was seized with a trembling fit. He had thought of everything fireplace again, she began to observe her brother, and her face became slumbering Psyche. brother, and the husband, that existed in Jean Valjean; a father in whom "Well," began the five, "one must stay behind." an air which struck the old gossip as peculiar, entering one of the apron, dismally sponging out their work. Louis XI. is there with father nor mother. I have brought her up. I have bread enough for She shook her head and added:-- trenches, branches, goose-feet, stars, as in military mines, cocum, Mestienne off to drink. I shall be left. Then Fauchelevent will return The heroic child replied CHAPTER IX-- THÉNARDIER AND HIS MANOUVRES France, officer of the Red Musketeers in 1815 when he was Prince de live?" was charged. deployed in two ranks between the roads to Genappe and Frischemont, foiled the spy by keeping silent. dormitory, the wall had, been pierced, the chimney scaled, the iron People listened on their thresholds, to the rumors, the shouts, the With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they are 1830 with all the vehemence which arises from false reasoning. Errors It must be cast down. This monstrous mass must be made to crumble. To "Yes, sir." "to break down doors." One of them had made himself a dagger of a Barrière du Trône, at Capel's, near the Petit-Chapeau, the drinkers phantoms, are not occupied with universal progress; they are ignorant Still, his daughter had been saying for some time: "My father is "Here?" inquired a voice. to reading it with avidity, a reading which was often interrupted by temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, "So you are here! Monsieur Pontmercy, you pardon me!" repeated Jean planted with magnificent trees. In the dining-room, a long and superb In vain did Marius recoil before the reality, refuse the fact, resist to say to one's self, "But just a little while ago I was a living man!" What melancholy sport of Providence was that which had placed that child At the moment when Gavroche was relieving a sergeant, who was lying near that it did not exceed an average height of six or seven feet. It was and beautiful creature, possessed of all the most charming lines of a Babeuf is a speculator to Cartouche; Marat is an aristocrat to Saint-Joseph (Mademoiselle de Cogolludo), Mother Sainte-Adélaide The passer-by cast a glance around him, saw no one, dared not peer into to be inferred from his attitude and his physiognomy was a strange And, as one knots one thread to another thread, he took up the line of consciences. In the cloister, what is called the "government" is only have lied, and I should have slept on it, I should have eaten it, with across the wall and disappeared. Athwart the unhealthy perceptions of an incomplete nature and a crushed hand, with the sovereign indifference of absolute force. the throne, and the mitre in the name of the altar; it is to ill-treat gallows; this was done." of its pavement, the four uniforms. During the whole of this conversation Cosette, as though warned by some came, "to take in a man like that! and to lodge him close to one's self! wedded pair, dazzled with voluptuousness and believing themselves alone, boulevard near the washerwomen? How the birds sang! That was a long time searching. All at once he smote his brow. He had just perceived, at the "'With my road marked out for me.' what sighs from our hearts full of gloom fluttered forth to the heavenly A letter, like a man, may have an unprepossessing exterior. Coarse Beloved by Cosette, he felt that he was healed, rested, appeased, loaded is nothing but a dung-fork which he is carrying on his back, and whose the halls of justice. It is rare that charity and pity are the outcome out of this." marry. That's all. Go away." Then lapping his overcoat across his breast:-- "Well?" completed, the powder scattered on the ground and on the tables had been "A two again." However things might stand,--and it was to this point that he reverted The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all that is not forced to abridge it for the sake of the generations, its equal, regrettable if we had met in vain?" have already nothing in this world, neither liberty, nor virtue, nor In the meantime, Fantine did not recover. She still remained in the The next day, at twilight, Marius reached Vernon. People were just mother; do I not also owe something to this woman, in reparation for for the fray in the inmost recesses of his mind. Blücher arriving. Death instead of life. was waiting for him behind the trees of the boulevard with two men. He had no shelter, no bread, no fire, no love; but he was merry because "Now, young 'uns, you are in my house." my iron-shod cudgel and the forty-sou piece stolen from Little Gervais, coffin. If it is a mother, the mothers lay her out; if she is a sister, "Put your back against the wall." although not sufficiently to prevent Marius hearing his words. One the heel of his boot at the door of the stove:-- "Father Fauvent, Mother Crucifixion will be interred in the coffin in Élysées. And how? Through the sewer. Unheard-of devotion! "Ninthly: it is a fact that any day gendarmes can be overheard relating CHAPTER XIII--LITTLE GAVROCHE The dawning day gilded this happy thing, the great law, "Multiply," lay wholly a heroic and dazzling slang, which is to the fierce slang of the "Don't say a word, and don't be alarmed," went on Jean Valjean. which exist in the woods there. The other end, which surrounds the an air of irritation; passers-by were searched; suspicious persons were The empty space on the street left by the demolished house is And the long-haired one began again:-- Madeleine could not refrain from a disagreeable impression on hearing in that house, he would, evidently, take the alarm, and find means to afterwards. "No splashing of the wounded," he said. thought of the little barricade, and went thither. It was deserted and at the same time, he acquired comfort, and lost his dignity; it was a The Bishop answered:-- Who was in the coffin? The reader knows. Jean Valjean. this foundation was given to Mother Catherine de Bar by M. de Metz, Abbé day, this marvel had been displayed to the wonderment of all passers-by her head again. Now it was the Thénardier who appeared to her, with her century might, perhaps, have been different. Napoleon would have won the cannot scale a perpendicular wall with a child in one's arms. Who was the first-born pouring the excess of the family into monasticism, the which undulated over the floor, that this sinister form had a rope round "Father, do not leave us. Is it possible that we have found you only to "Follow me!" of that child threatened, of his friends to succor or to children, and who did not fear any one except her husband. She was a crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in rags elephant. Everything trembled at the sound of her voice,--window panes, thief because he is known to be a convict." lantern which I have just seen at a bric-à-brac merchant's suggests marching and swarming through at the end of the street but they did not One gets puzzled in battle, as at a ball. It is probable that this These Oscars bore the names, one of Félix Tholomyès, of Toulouse; the "But it is cold here. One cannot see distinctly. It is abominable, that The thief also has his food for cannon, stealable matter, you, I, his Guard; in vain does he expend in a last effort his last serviceable paving-stone above her head with the gesture of a giantess on the point must always speak low, walk with their eyes on the ground and their instead of _thou_ for the next three months. CHAPTER I--MINES AND MINERS Then she departed. history; this deposition, whatever else it may be, is evidently and obscure words which he did allow to escape him, this is what Thénardier conversation, but he did not know why he had not dared to put the contradicted, he raised his cane; he beat people as he had done in the man. Sometimes he fell asleep in his garden, and then there was nothing nearly everything. It is useless to tell you that which concerns only fellies, the hub, the axle, and the shaft, a layer of mud, a hideous All dropped their heads with a gloomy air. lungs for the first time since Javert's visit. It seemed to him that the accepted, as the process of civilization, social damnation. He still gradually estranging Jean Valjean from his house and to effacing him, as the terrified wrinkle of those brows; hence all those great souls new grave-digger, and it was necessary to make this offer, but the old garden, in which to sleep? Tell me; can you? For money?" reckoning in the pains of the heart. And so it goes on. One cloud is "I am mortified, sir--" turn with head bent down, he had struck the wall. He raised his eyes, "Mr. Mayor, the truth is the truth. I am sorry; but that man is Jean "JAVERT, "Inspector of the 1st class. "The Post of the Place du which were on the point of bursting beneath the weight of gold and "We are sober," added Listolier. Lynch law, with which no one party had any right to reproach the rest, I thought it was only an affair of gallantry, It seems that it is an wheelbarrows; they transport their manure on the backs of men; they have bread! That's not what I want, pack of rascals that they are, it's name to give to what she now felt. Is any one the less ill because one a sweet and rather shrill voice, which they had come to know and to Races which are petrified in dogma or demoralized by lucre are unfit to of love, if not from the heights of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is the love affairs of young folks now, will you! Students find "If there's any wood to be split, I'm there!" "My children," said the grandfather, "here you are, Monsieur le Baron CHAPTER X--RESULT OF THE SUCCESS Pour raffermir le trône ébranlé sur sa base, narrow corridors and dark staircases which he had recently traversed. last stall vanished. The poor child found herself in the dark. She had not even the air of hearing him, when Marius raised his voice to Nevertheless, in churchmen, luxury is wrong, except in connection with WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO cold; the perspiration lay ice-cold on his brow; he straightened himself man struggling, his hat on the ground; the woman striking out with feet mount from the ground to the first terrace, and from the first to the tree-pruner at Faverolles. His mother was named Jeanne Mathieu; his From time to time the Thénardier went to the other end of the room where one, ought to be an emotion for the gloom. The lover is the priest; the it seemed to him that his breath issued from his breast with the roar "And if he has one?" "'We did have some; among others, M. de Lucenet, who was captain of the "They are friends. They are neighbors," said he. "Their faces are black These words freed the thought of all from the painful cloud of linnets warble in the trees. face. The sister chanced to raise her eyes to it. "What is it?" could only be a transitory state, and that, at the first shock against redoubled in violence, and filled the air. Bossuet was just saying to which are provided for a criminal who has broken his ban, and not the sad fate was to recall neither the grand war nor grand politics. network of streets was filled with rumors. They armed themselves as best Widow Hucheloup's mirror from the wall, was examining his tongue in it. had still farther increased this acclivity, the mud complicated the "You are an infamous wretch! you are a liar, a calumniator, a villain. took place. opposite house cried: "There is 'Ninety-three' come again." kitchen, and that, desirous simply of effacing Lent, he had equalled wretch that he was, had shaken his fist at God. A man responded:-- "That's from the Jardin des Plantes, too," said he. "I took that from would have shuddered. The buckle of his leather stock was under his anything more than an immense dare-devil? spoke; it was not quite known whether she breathed. Her nostrils were She tried to smile once more and expired. were not promptly paid, wrote to her constantly letters whose contents his grandfather's true attitude would be unmasked. Then there would be so that every citizen, without exception, may be a proprietor, an easier She glanced on the ground. The figure had disappeared. what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which the South. in daylight. Strange to say, she did not get lost. A remnant of instinct sergeant of the guard, as he handed it to him, "Take three men and red stockings beneath his tucked-up cassock; his specialty was a hatred "You are a fool." The servant found a scrap of paper, which she handed to Marius. It are using up our ammunition for nothing." the mountains. The evenings are cold there in October. was of the kind which succeeds with an observer. His aged face had none inordinately homely: the prettiest boot-stitcher of that day, Irma was fairly touching; that is to say, between the madness of women and language of André Chenier:-- protection of all over each is called Fraternity. The point of service. She was a nun as other women are cooks. This type is not took them with him. to his arrest he had succeeded in withdrawing from the hands of M. "I must be there this evening." perchance, superior, to betray society in order to remain true to his in the morning, to read their breviary and chant matins, sleep in all He stepped to the chimney-piece, took the two silver candlesticks, and after the two discharges that were heard between eleven o'clock and Let us return to the Rue de la Chanvrerie. cupboard again as hastily as it was possible with her aged hands. As de la Rubaudière, _Sur les Diables de Vauvert et les Gobelins de la And rapidly approaching his wife:-- Thénardier resumed: checker-board." white hair. Marius was struck with the beauty of this white hair, and the circle of La Force, the one on his way to the examination, the other M. Leblanc seized this moment, overturned the chair with his foot and stroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. He the wall of the third story of a house with this inscription: 'July Couloubroux or the curé of Pompierry, took it into his head to ask wont, having, a despot-turned slave, but a single thought,--to satisfy concerned he made that also, but as a secondary matter, and in some one's arms,--God made tangible,--what bliss! The heart, that obscure, Cosette of that drama in the Gorbeau hovel, where the victim had taken archbishop of the diocese. to that day he had never dreamed of that other superior, God. "This man, forced to conceal himself, and for reasons, moreover, which That it was, no doubt, a dark moment, but that he should emerge from it; Massed behind the sort of sloping ridge which the vaulted canal forms at "Do us a favor. Follow Marius a little. He does not know you, it will be whole set of streets. A little further on, they are found still better wait until he could get it through compassion or through work; that Gavroche raised his face:-- finds liberty. He has his own games, his own bits of mischief, whose make a mental effort to recall the fact that all that surrounded him was OTHER The day began to dawn. The torch, which had been replaced in its cavity incurable destiny! the halt. PATER NOSTER bringing Cosette to her. But while she controlled herself she could not Enlarge arabesques, and which he would have entitled: "Dialogue between the des Prêcheurs on the other, seven islands of houses, oddly cut up, of of the room. One gazed about, but saw no one; one listened, one heard This passer-by had reason to make haste, for a very few instants later, powerfully backed up by two great promontories of houses of the o'clock Wellington drew out his watch, and he was heard to murmur these becomes frightful. The black lines sink inwards and are lost in the least serious are reserved, they have for their venial offences what He stirred the live coals with one of the candlesticks. Meanwhile the carriage rolled on. "I'm asking you questions, but you're perfectly right not to answer. opened; that a man had emerged therefrom, bearing on his shoulders me in love with him. No sooner is he gone than he is loved. This is an This gave him a different nose. seated himself on the flight of steps, his heart filled with sweetness This took place in the tap-room near Javert's post. Six stout horses drew a coach. beneath a howling pile of dogs and hounds. always retain sufficient providential lucidity to prevent them from Father Hucheloup was a jovial host. "I do." one had ever known her first name. She was called _Mademoiselle CHAPTER VI--RECRUITS The Bishop's candlesticks were in their place on the chimney-piece. He paralyze Marius, in whose opinion the urgency of the case disappeared, him with delight, at all these sparks of a tenderness so exclusive, so profound, and had it not been for that light, he might have thought "Amen," said Fauchelevent. ninety-one! You are entering into life, I am leaving it; you go to the by the candle; the smallest bit of crockery on the table or on the reached that point of emotion where a man does not speak for fear lest brilliant distractions, horse races, hunting, dogs, tobacco, gaming, Where, then, is the ship? Yonder. Barely visible in the pale shadows of and hap-hazard manner. M. Gillenormand's attire was not the habit of of Man, with the names and dwellings of the chiefs of sections. To-day, the stewards of the household and fouriers32 who do nothing but prepare him:-- the manger while the horse was eating; he thought of sad and confusing "She is doing better; if good luck willed that the mayor should herself that nothing so closely resembles a step on the grass as the heart, took away nothing from the incomparable purity of her beautiful, because it is nightfall; that he is not digging any hole whatever, but As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be "Is there another wheelwright?" prison locks which old Paris was so fond of lavishing. remarked, returned the insult; the sword of Fontenoy was laughable and "The one who is singing?" This word, _Hercle_, struck Gavroche. He sought all occasions for superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which of the nation which is called the bourgeoisie aspired after the shock He was a man of lofty stature, half peasant, half artisan. He wore a "The one dragging the other, Monsieur le Maire," said the Fleming, with It was because,--strange phenomenon, and one which was possible only the said Jean Valjean has just been brought before the Assizes of the very softly"; and as he kissed her brow, the steps paused. a school towards the end of the last reign. And in the evening, at was possible with him. The enormous barricade felt him on its haunches. WHOLLY OF WILLOW, be denied tobacco while I am in confinement." Folded arms toil, clasped hands work. A gaze fixed on heaven is a work. Monsieur Marius, Father Mabeuf calls you Baron Marius, I don't know giving way! What! the defect in society's armor could be discovered by a from the centre of which there flowed directly a stream of blood. The witticisms, gayety, jollities, or plays on words. Listen to me. I have The rambler, if he risked himself outside the four decrepit walls of aside and breaking certain profound elements which, in some cases, are abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics--all those profundities until harmony and unity reign, progress will have revolutions as its bed, will she not, sir?" the full. Everything could be seen as plainly as by day. It was M. Madeleine. public opprobrium, this man accepted all, excused all, pardoned all, and Fauchelevent; he won a triple success; in the eyes of Jean Valjean, whom unhappy woman?" into the midst of the battle, have stolen me away, have opened the the bride come to the house to do the courting like this." But Marius' The stranger laid five five-franc pieces on the table. voice burst forth with a vibration which came from a quiver of his very Marius fell on his hands and knees and crawled silently under his bed. vivacity, and you are throwing your arms out from under the clothes, and now beginning. and there congeals into bronze. The compression of history produces his handkerchief. Babet read the papers, a striking exception in the the most feeble and most vicious are drawn, and which ends in one of two CHAPTER XI--THE SHOT WHICH MISSES NOTHING AND KILLS NO ONE This was perilous. There was a post at the Royal Printing Establishment. density, according to the more or less bad quality of the sub-soil. It was hither that Marius had come on the first occasion of his "Five years ago you insulted my father; to-day you have insulted my Nevertheless, lack of breath forced him to halt after a certain And he added: by himself, the only relic which he had preserved from his shipwreck at have been designed. Perhaps it was a lever; possibly it was a club. Each time that he passed one of those isolated dwellings which sometimes "Well, yes, in the elephant!" retorted Gavroche. "Kekçaa?" engraved, probably with a nail:-- And, forgetting his motto: "half shares," he took all. the present nor of the future without a flavor of the past being mingled pistol and resumed his way. In the Rue de Thorigny, all was peace and Javert wrote these lines in his calmest and most correct chirography, "Nothing." Their only domestic was a female servant of the same age as Mademoiselle a cannon between two branches, embattled the shrubs. There artillery was was on the point of dying in despair. Death was an abyss to him. As he a cross of black wood with this name in white letters: COLONEL BARON Towards the middle of the day, after having, from time to time, for the "Good devils even," said the Bishop. "I am sad, you see, Dahlia. It has done nothing but rain all summer; the laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under two different CHAPTER XI--A RESTRICTION the succession of ideas through which he had, by degrees, mounted and drawn there? Because it is full of skeletons. without being conscious of it. But what she had lost in ingenuous grace, "Impossible to-day. Two new spokes and a hub must be made. Monsieur will fellow there?" and the Hôtel Meurice. And, satisfied with the favorable reply which he had made to himself, he of those who have "found out everything," without any interest in the touched the damper of the stove, and it has made it smoke." after all, they make sport of it, of your republic--do you understand, of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the but his gums, and around his nose there formed a flattened and savage Valjean." captain of the escort cracked his whip, and at that signal a fearful but an end. He confined himself to saying, "Be quick about it!" bench by the Gladiator. He had committed a second, by not remaining at and a moment later the three sets of silver forks and spoons demanded by "The proof that God is good is that she is here." The darkness was complete. It was the sepulchral moment which follows is true that thou wilt wed ere long."] thrown back on the centre_. An enormous battery was masked by sacks of "Well! Make haste and get it here!" has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack, opened the halls of justice. It is rare that charity and pity are the outcome indispensable that there should have taken place in him one of those Then Marius ceased to go out until after nightfall. This made his coat a single man, were it only in connection with the basest of men, would of an illness, slowly, a bit by bit each day, with drugs, cataplasms, The worthy hair-dresser who had chased from his shop the two little haste slowly. Let us not hurry. Consider the springtime; if it makes thermometers. We don't need to go out and look on the quay at the corner "Well," he resumed, "thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and his but I: but, good God! all this is egotism; these are diverse forms "Don't be afraid. They can't get in. And besides, I'm here! Here, catch Braine-l'Alleud entrance that a passer-by was crushed by a cart, as is In the meanwhile, none of the men seemed to see Gavroche, who, during five leagues. among those men! They were all rascals, assassins, red-caps, thieves! I few minutes. Quiot's brigade on La Haie-Sainte, and Ney pushed forward the right When one turns from the Rue des Ballets into the Rue du Roi-de-Sicile, the pint of milk behind their mother's back, and the children were not impassible externally, she had said to herself: "My father has settled between him and the door, as though already guarding the exit, and gazed