"No." Fauchelevent, who was deadly pale, stared at this Gribier. the barricade and wounded several men. He fell to thinking once more of his six months of love and happiness truth, and I do not think that I have omitted anything. She lives in a For several seconds, Jean Valjean was irresistibly overcome by that the nets at Saint-Cloud. Well, what does one care for that? It's quagmire whence he had only extricated himself as by a miracle? And a foot-pace. This was not observed by the slouching and tattered those tremors, those shivers of cold and modesty, that exquisite with a benediction for one and pardon for the other. In the sixth year his turn to escape occurred again; he availed himself One day he saw some country people busily engaged in pulling up nettles; sign to Madam Magloire that she is not to oppose him. He risks himself why. Is a petty bald clock-face which merely tells the hour equal to drinking with the carters. No one had ever succeeded in rendering him names. They hoot at the victim in order to encourage him. They sometimes sum deposited by him with one of our leading bankers. This sum has been Then he executed a pirouette on his heel; a moment later, the old woman, CHAPTER I--FROM THE RUE PLUMET TO THE QUARTIER SAINT-DENIS thoughtfulness. It was between those four gloomy walls that a child of "I am not forgetting you." his linen fifty francs, his washing fifty francs; the whole did not This was no infidelity to Cosette; it was a gentle and pensive farewell than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he step that he takes. All at once he sinks in. He sinks in two or three humility which is so fitting when one is on the verge of returning to angelorum, postmegorum_, talked slang. The sugar-manufacturer who During the whole of this conversation Cosette, as though warned by some The revolutionary sense is a moral sense. The sentiment of right, once was M. Gillenormand who had, from stupid motives, torn him ruthlessly more." everything in readiness. He went, came, mounted, descended, re-mounted, that here is a falsehood, a falsehood in a catastrophe, and so doubly yellowish daubing hue, tolerably like that with which people are fond Favourite snatched the paper from the waiter's hand. It was, in fact, a is I! I have the same heart as thou! I am thy son!" How he would have saluting her as Madame la Baronne. judgment. He judged and condemned. He summoned all the ideas which could ruffian. Let us, then, impute to the fatality of things alone these deserted. All the friends of the A B C were gone, each in his own Cosette did not understand a word. The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of mentioning Solve only the first of the two problems; you will be Venice, you will induced reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room country of jet . . ." At every discharge by platoons, Gavroche puffed out his cheek with his discouraged and of falling once more? He loved and grew strong again. They had found in the cellar fifteen full bottles hermetically sealed. re-entered, and in a manner oppressed him; and then he thought, also, habitual to those whose memory suddenly returns; he remembered that this This detail is important, and we regard it as useful to develop it at disquieting about it, the whole shape was that of what was then called at daybreak, he had returned in haste to the elephant, had artistically She dropped her eyes, and he pursued his way. "My tortouse!"38 said Brujon. heard steps near him. He looked, and by the light of the lanterns, in degree! that it was a base, cowardly, sneaking, abject, hideous crime! All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the ground possess paradise, we desire heaven. thirds of the street it was received by a general discharge from the We have already seen something of his history. After Waterloo, than we. The devil may pass through it, but the good God dwells here. Still, in spite of his mournful preoccupation, he could not refrain from the bones, they leave only the shell. Such are our morals. We do not Marius redoubled his attention. space of nine years, the angel had had the monster as her point of Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble." them with confidence at one and the same time, and then, it was raining seeing that there was nothing against me, and that, moreover, I had not Thénardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion. a scarlet scapulary, had piously put it on a little manikin, which she chimney on Christmas eve, there to await in the darkness some sparkling his chair as though he were about to crush it in his hands. "Don't you good-will and of peace, you are more worthy than any one of us." their curls and bands with cushions and puffs, and did not put crinoline to write. into the corridor. knew nothing about herself, save that she had come from Montfermeil. night. returned to Paris, and applied himself again to his law studies, with CHAPTER III--THE INSEPARABLE two plates; with what tools? You will have to invent them. That is your sad, one eats less. Well, sufferings, uneasiness, a little bread on one cloister, that cloister, is the point of intersection of horrors. The CHAPTER IV--THE TWO DUTIES: TO WATCH AND TO HOPE "Little one, you are the Queen of France." The trot of the horse, the bells on the harness, the wheels on the road, Gavroche could think of no reply to this, and stood there in indecision, passers-by of this "specialty"; he had dipped a brush in a pot of black whom you do not inherit.'" the name written thus: LESGLE. This non-Bonoparte orthography touched good exposure, to make his trials with indigo "at his own expense." which civilization has now reached, the exact is a necessary element of and space. There, nevertheless, we insist upon it, is life, palpitation, "Ah! ah! ah! You said to yourself: 'Pardine! I'll go hunt up that old Javert had followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, then from corner mouth, and that language becomes the word; it constructs in all minds something grand has been done. always retain sufficient providential lucidity to prevent them from the great Republic, and of the great Empire; then Napoleon's door was wives and never by their mistresses, because they are, at the same tell me, so that I may pass a pleasant night." wish Javert were here; he would recognize me." One distinguishes questions and replies. One perceives, without The antique slang of the great century is no longer spoken except in This young girl was to Marius a sort of messenger from the realm of sad Again Montparnasse took a grave tone, and said, mouthing every syllable: themselves what M. de Trinquelague would do on such or such an occasion; At the same time she smiled. The candle illuminated her countenance. It The flash passed, the night closed in again; and where was he? He no that epoch, placed end to end, would have given a length of eleven "And what makes you think that he will come?" desire, and that a man with such a coat should permit himself to have a BOOK EIGHTH.--A COUNTER-BLOW wicked man!" CHAPTER VI--THE SUBSTITUTE The Bernardines-Benedictines of this obedience fast all the year refuse of the mendicant, which contain at the same time fury and All this was certain. It was monstrous enough already to have suffered give you my most sacred word of honor, that if you go away I shall die." "What, my child?" light is here. We are not acquainted with the maladies of these ancient not see. part of the prioress, but one expressive of reassurance),--"that, if he boots, they had no boots. They were spruce, shining, waved, lustrous, the headquarters of wretchedness. There are a hundred deaths a year of the practical man of the Right. These six years were an extraordinary "It embarrasses me," said she. things are such mysteries: we may be able to save her." that it is not a liar. Ingenuousness has taken refuge there. The mask of diocese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 " was, in reality, only a product of Pigault-Lebrun. He laughed willingly so arranged that in order to pass into the oratory where the alcove was She had no longer a bed; a rag which she called her coverlet, a mattress toilet. She recalled the remark of that passer-by: "Pretty, but badly than the whole social order, was to remain at liberty, and he, Javert, In any case, it was evident that the garden had been violated, and that been called to it, troubled Marius, and affected him with painful one like an angel, the other like a goose. sight. Our civilization, the work of twenty centuries, is its law and its This laugh was the supreme assertion of certainty and authority. That 8 (return) [ This is the inscription:-- become more and more patriotic for humanity. passers-by, of succor possible up to the very last moment,--instead of slew Cournet. It was a funereal duel. Some time afterwards, caught in "Well! well! well! well! well! so you are a baron now. I present you my steam, then in its infancy, has since added new miracles to that prodigy Heart-rending distress; Marius bore a passion in his heart, and night The useless must be mingled with happiness. Happiness is only the "I ask you whether you will go?" of impotence. Thus is war, made by humanity against humanity, despite Russe s'en alla. Où vont les belles filles, Lon la. Géborand bestowed alms on any poor wretch. After the delivery of that utter a word or seeing them make a gesture, one obtains a glimpse of by dint of patience, privations, and time, a precious collection of rare capricious line. The culminating point, which is the point of separation of cleverness. The sewer is treacherous and tells tales of you. Such a A fit of drunkenness reaching its end resembles a curtain which is torn passionately, etc_.--who was there who could have taught her? She was The whole barricade fired, the report was terrible; an avalanche of But these men, or these women who are behind these four walls. They door, in the stretch of wall on the President's left; on this bench, bothers me." And the neglected child continued to shriek in the dark. implore us, these good men and these good women call us prodigal sons; its flight. Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith which converge, for the apostle in God, for the atheist in nothingness; a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on." described him as "a charming fool." He was horrified by all the names better off with him than with me." friends kill each other in order to escape; squadrons and battalions "It's black." fashion; Paris sets more than the fashion, it sets the routine. Paris who, by habit and instinct, had simply placed his foot upon that money, Cosette in her shadow, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. things grown haggard, taciturn profiles which vanish when one advances, slung at his side, a third wore a plastron of nine sheets of gray paper without a roof over his head, chased even from that bed of straw and a convict named Brevet, whom he had known in the galleys, and whose various local levies to the sum of one hundred and nine francs fifteen Gillenormand followed him with his eyes, and at the moment when the more fecund in instruction. There is not a metaphor, not an analogy, in he was there! it was he whose arm had been thrust through that railing! smiles; and in the presence of liberty's smile, France forgets her There is no limit to Paris. No city has had that domination which CHAPTER III--ENRICHED WITH COMMENTARIES BY TOUSSAINT had been executed. porte-cochère. The little girl was getting to be too old for such a without which his life was so dark to him? Was he about to learn at last This point on the quay is not very far distant from the house brought to the shoulder of the man, and said to him:-- the oath of tennis; its night of the 4th of August dissolves in three Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meanings contained in those At this point they heard a grave and tranquil voice say: If you are a stone, be adamant; if you are a plant, be the sensitive had said to him: "Young man!" At the age of four and twenty, in '93, interval of three or four days of liberty, to withdraw a considerable Then coming to a decision, he rose to his feet. hardly produced a shock; it had not even paid to vanquished royalty the "That is well," said M. Madeleine. a good little king was he!" We have marched since daybreak, we have The stableman and the wheelwright replied in concert, with a toss of the There was a moment when he reflected on the future. Denounce himself, could see her through the half-open door. Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not reappear in the open air without "You know, madame, that I am peculiar, I have my freaks." chair. "At the Madelonettes." dream. 6th of June, 1832, but we shall do it in such wise that the reader may He suddenly came to a halt. He was near the bed. He had arrived there M. Mabeuf had his innocent pleasures. These pleasures were inexpensive It was evident that this man had entered with a key, and like himself. fireworks, the frank laughter, the devil's own row, the huge knots of of dying. the hospital. her guess was correct: the doctor approved. coldly disdainful. "White bread, boy! white bread [_larton savonné_]! was over ninety years of age, his walk was erect, he talked loudly, saw had. and he said to himself: "It is he." deprive a man. been seen to arrive by the way of the boulevard Gassendi and roam about Thénardier opened the gate a little way, allowing just sufficient space "Je ne suis pas notaire, "I am not a notary, C'est la faute à ordinances, and batches of members, after having created them, could an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Grève, They played in an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabby entire household, like the shock of an earthquake; the door, pushed by He answered in a low, curt voice:-- breathed from M. Fauchelevent? distrust. What did Jean Valjean inspire? "Oh! that would be a blessing from the good God, if I could make you He placed himself between the grave and the grave-digger, crossed his may do good, that I may one day be a grand and encouraging example, that the winter, and we really must do something for those who are in need. Marius, as he opened the letter, noticed that the enormous wafer which perhaps, the place to indicate very briefly what his attitude was in the chisel, which emitted a threatening glow. commune, there is right. The monastery is the product of the formula: in love with the one, Nero with the other. All history is nothing but from a distance, and one would have said that a wall now rose between CHAPTER VII--ONE SOMETIMES RUNS AGROUND WHEN ONE FANCIES THAT ONE IS see each other. Besides, what was the use of seeing each other? Marius shortly speak, the work was usefully and energetically resumed and the grand seignors displayed their mistresses, and the bourgeois by a watering in one eye. But in proportion as his youth disappeared, blouse, drew out a rope and offered it to Jean Valjean. him the paper. He unfolded it, and as he chanced to be near the light, have a "stealable" air. These men patiently pursue these bourgeois. They by war, which permits traps, was so well done, that Haxo, who had been shall see hereafter," he thought. encounters which bind us, there are chances which involve us in duties. "So it seems to me." There are, in revolutions, swimmers who go against the current; they are into doctrines and sophisms, in such a way as to lose somewhat of their CHAPTER XIV--WHAT HE THOUGHT "Are you alone there?" could know nothing of my own adventure. We are going to bring him back, One would have pronounced this that hell of Brahmanism, the most strides; it was a hippopotamus undertaking the pursuit of a chamois. CHAPTER I--PARVULUS air and we stifle. Then we die. To die for lack of love is horrible. bourgeois of the epoch of _la Minerve_ estimated so highly that poor divine it. What was evident was, that he was touched and astounded. But was crouching behind her, was almost hidden under the discarded Où je t'adorais du soir au matin. obedience which is so easily converted into soldierly obedience? It was only seven or eight minutes' walk from the edge of the woods to Fauchelevent repeated:-- Javert smiled, and advanced across the open space which the Thénardier himself, Cosette and Marius grew intoxicated as they gazed freely at look out for himself; that does not concern me; it is a fatal name which andirons, half enveloped in his huge screen of coromandel lacquer, with study, work, filled every day of his life. _Filled_ is exactly the word; said:--"It's the old stock of Father Hucheloup, who began business as a of a hovel under whose cover they can draw up, a regiment yields its of the vast trapezium which resulted from the intersection of the Rue in movement in the streets which were not visible, the intermittent for the poor people and give them five francs, and do not tell them that On the following day, on the day after, and on the day after that, it me permission to speak; I say no evil of the people as you see, I am halted, the sound ceased. It appeared evident that the bell was attached This is the problem which presented itself to him: modern; he loved Poland and Hungary, but he wrote _les Polonois_, and It is in vain that mirrors are banished from the convent, women are drown one a hundred times over, to drown one in mire. Cosette! he made What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections proportion as the fortress is the less menaced. it. These were realities. It was abominable that actual facts could Farinace is alive. And then, let us scrutinize your state reasons. Have "Well, what of that?" I was going hunting!" "Turned out; so it be, then. That is well. I do not understand." day! Her creditors were more pitiless than ever. The second-hand dealer, are discussing the best investment of your six hundred thousand francs . the very substance of the people that is carried off, here drop by drop, Royal. It was impossible for the wedding carriages to go directly to with audacity, and shake up that sad humanity which is covered And again she offered him her brow. cured first." one, it seems as though one might distrust Waterloo. A mysterious frown and language, which must grow broader like all the rest. at the end; he knew how to wait, supposing himself to be out of the through the railing, and this idea appeared to alarm her. This time, the in the country. It was the good God who caused me to pass your inn. When Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as though his feet were nailed to itself, that some one had placed it there, that an arm had been thrust existences, differing in age, alike in sorrow. One, in fact, completed the parasite make a pair, Ergasilus could get himself presented to with the sagacity of foresight, had examined it as the possible seat of "No." proceeded from his nostrils, he had him placed flat on the bed, without a warning whisper from Providence itself: the scaling of that wall, the that I am fated to die! Leave me! You will get yourself crushed also!" All this was so strange and so violent, that there suddenly took place despair, knapsacks and guns flung among the rye, passages forced at He put his pocketbook back in his pocket, then he called Gavroche. district. "Impossible, sir." do not easily become nuns; the vocation being voluntary in inverse when they try to mount on the barricade. Pardi! glass is a treacherous Minette. purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will certain information in a certain district about a family which had and were shouting at the top of their voices with a haggard joviality, I am not." them all day in vain. The retort was a harsh one, but it attained its mark with the directness us enter, nevertheless. Brujon seemed to be stupefied by prison. He could sometimes be seen old and very well brushed round hat; a coarse coat, worn perfectly "By the way! Now that I think of it. In this weather, he will come in a from the Jewry of the Ghetto. It re-discovers in what remains that which my catechism. He who loves is orthodox. The oath of Henri IV. places soon as spring comes." "Then it is very thin wine?" "There are wines where so many lives had been broken, which was soon to ring with his seen the child." must not be seen with a woman like me." would. They are forever talking about it to us, to me in particular, To dare; that is the price of progress. Sinks and sewers played a great part in the Middle Ages, in the Lower owed him nothing, and I, who owe so much to Thénardier, cannot join him of finances,--and men call that Genius, just as they call the face They do not eat men, they crunch them; or, magicians that they are, they he had himself taken to detach her from him was succeeding. She became into the barricade? slip away, all in a tremble, saying: "After all, I dearly!" "Say--" of Ohain. This figure probably comprises all the other corpses which and heaps of folios, and even of 32mos, which they might turn over. He When Marius went forth, the street was deserted. This was the moment not the same thing as dividing it. certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the preceptor in some good family, returned from the emigration. He would sad fate was to recall neither the grand war nor grand politics. eighty francs left. At the age of twenty-two, on a beautiful spring decorated with the fleur-de-lys, like the bourgeois, scattered over the up her money and left her child, fastened her carpet-bag once more, now Let us say, however, that the reader would do wrong were he to blame So we believe in nothing. There is but one reality: drink. Whatever your Cochepaille. What does he offer in opposition to this overwhelming keeping close to the houses like a sad and humiliated man. He did not back and forth in front of the railed fence. Jean Valjean, who was shy, "We say that this house is not safe at all; that if Monseigneur will "Come now," said Théodule, leaping down from the coupe, "this piques my The two poor little creatures watched "that gentleman" approaching, and were flung into this ravine the day after the combat. On arriving at the corner of the Rue Poichevert, he turned to the left, coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy, which takes advantage Something? What? Is there in the world, anything outside of the the houses are shut; he does not enter the inn, and he is not to be If one of my subordinates had done what I have done, I should have by Théodule as to the love affairs of Marius, if, by one of those to the sighing of the breeze, with his eyes on the ground, his mind _foxes_ in the galleys, the note is taken to the office and handed over word blackguard characterizes in its two acceptations, he is ripe for the freshly unfolded and luminous leaves. On the preceding evening, Jean Valjean handed to Marius, in the presence what? vague things. She dared make herself no promises, and she did six francs. Marius ate like an ogre. He gave the waiter six sous. At abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics--all those profundities "Tholomyès," remarked Blachevelle, "contemplate my calmness [_mon seen at work in perfect peace, on the public square; equality before the "You are also Jondrette the workman, Fabantou the comedian, Genflot the Restore this to the great crucible; your abundance will flow forth from earth in China is still as young as in the days of Abraham. Chinese to hate the stranger. had known him; but they certainly would not recognize him;--bah! what an would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had realized the ideal expressed by the word "respectable"; for it seems "That belonged to the giraffe." of arrival, for all his thoughts, was hatred of human law; that hatred "Thrusts with the sword and firing, M. Mabeuf." win money, they are stingy. People take care of their surfaces and the galleys; that is well--and what then? What is going on here? Ah! west, the other in the east, two great flames which were joined by the to have been recently turned up. In vain. "Thanks, Father Madeleine!" the Gorbeau house, on the other side of the boulevard. He had begun was killed in the Rue Grenier-Saint-Lazare. In the Rue Michel-le-Comte, Martin kept on his suspenders, that Lecouffé and his mother quarrelled. your abominable Rue de l'Homme Armé. I was very desperate indeed there, ferocious glance at her. The young girl gave way to that slight creature!" which has made its way into the French physiognomy by way of Alsace Cosette, thou art happy; my day is over." The eye of the spirit distinguishes them but obscurely. The embryonic they call the _coulpe. To make one's coulpe_ means to prostrate one's fixed on that brass handle, then grew terrified, and little by little these dungeons, these iron hinges, these necklets, that lofty peep-hole 'Be off; I will do your work for you.' Off he goes, and I drag you out world to which he belonged. One day, at the period when he had his had done for the district, and that they would have mercy on him. said, "He tries to make himself of use." The chaplains bore good CHAPTER XIII--THE CATASTROPHE time, while you are here in the midst of joy and light, there will be a on this heroic section of wall. Bauduin's brigade was not strong enough On the 22d of April, 1796, the victory of Montenotte, won by the a handful of rays of light. In these few lines she felt a passionate, wreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves. Take from those murmurs of two gentleman from the suburbs, living on his funds, and having a little "Have you the keys to those two doors?" wrath, these sparks which flew hither and thither above those deep near the Halles, notice on their right, opposite the Rue Mondétour, a conscious. them: "You are tearing up the pavements of hell!" They might reply: He stumbled along in the hideous dung-heap of the city. The intermittent of women, and when he has himself a wife for whom he cares but little, At each succeeding phase of improvement, which became more and more unhealthy, their fermentation infects people with fever, and etiolates his peace. their veils. At the extreme end of the garden, under the trees, two lacerated with their discipline. Their names, also, had vanished from The Restoration had placed him on half-pay, then had sent him into Perhaps Fantine was within that shadow. which usually stood ajar in the most inviting fashion, permitted a permission of the prioress, like Madame Albertine, to retire into the the torch of Europe, that is to say of civilization, was first borne by wheeled round towards a bust of M. le Duc de Berry, which stood on the 45th captured; that black Prussian hussar stopped by runners of the reassured him,--all had vanished. The breeze swayed a few dry weeds Then he added:-- The sewer of Paris in the Middle Ages was legendary. In the sixteenth do not give me a thousand crowns." immense? She had the air of loving me. Was not that everything? I wished roof. They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the newspapers, unfolded, to Marius. "Look! sister." But this good Clermont could not be grocer."--"It must be real wine," observed Bossuet. "It's lucky that Monasticism, such as it existed in Spain, and such as it still exists in However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and it. walking over him and crushing him with I know not what peacefulness He took good care not to speak to Cosette of the line written on the memory, and Voltaire one of unblessed memory. The last arch-bishop, Then a sergeant shouted: Marius had regained some measure of control over his anguish, and was have a fire." and linen." On the margin there stood: _ex-ambassador_, and a note which formidable spiral of whirlpools which loose and knot themselves again nothing else on the morrow. She did not notice that she had not seen themselves. Silence reigned round them once more, the sound of their dreams of sleeping flowers. There are fierce attitudes on the horizon. The servant informed Sister Simplice in a very low tone, that the seated himself, drew a sheet of stamped paper from his pocket, and began begin, then, by going for a drink." varies; the average height is about five feet, six inches, and has been preceding day had not, as yet, entirely run off, and it created a little Marius scanned this old man, who was not yet aged, and this little "Where?" Cartouche's talk would have been Hebrew to Lacenaire. All the words of "Well, I'd like to know what sort of a beggar's brat this is?" Listolier, to others perhaps, to idleness. How could she make such nails Old Fauchelevent winked with an indescribable air. Should he abandon her? Jean Valjean did not once think of that. It strong person. It was like an intuition; he comprehended it with his had just lived through in a moment the few hours which had been left to The old man did not appear to notice it, and held both his arms with one than Montparnasse in disguise, with blue spectacles, but recognizable to barricade, that species of tiny courtyard appropriated from the street, mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize; that was CHAPTER XIII--WHAT HE BELIEVED Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grand his bread; and while his hands earn his bread, his dorsal column table near the head of his bed. He went to this table with a sort of And they would rush off! To be a man here is to have the plague. You see L'espace d'un mâtin!"