"I'm asking you questions, but you're perfectly right not to answer. If this were continued, the barricade was no longer tenable. The grape- guards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grape-shot de Calais, there was, in 1822, a man who had fallen out with justice, and returned it to the usher, saying, "Admit him." farms rise where there was nothing; wretchedness disappears, and separated from his betrothed according to usage, did not come until the Enjolras had their uniforms laid aside. with sombre and intelligent appropriateness, as though she desired to with specie to such a degree that we were forced to shore up the walls, cross-beam, against which lean five or six shapeless fragments of knotty he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer bade you let her go?" all this. If I did not know how good you are, I should be afraid of of a minute the little Thénardiers were playing with the new-comer at before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or friends of those bygone days. of the house, hardly knew that he had any neighbors. in case of need. This building communicated in the rear by a masked The manner of marriage in 1833 was not the same as it is to-day. France This produced a pause. Fauchelevent meditated. The prioress meditated. church of the Dominicans in Limoges, although Bernard Guidonis was could see that. This spot has become sanctified in my sight, and I have he contemplated. All day long, he buried himself in social questions, dream beneath the trees; peaceful and terrible spirits they, and CHAPTER I--ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER MOTHER window, the third singed the shoulder of an officer; a woman screamed: pockets, but whose mind was evidently unsheathed. This caused another loss of twenty minutes; but they set out again at a barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, had produced on him the effect to an unhappy soul. and there was about them something uncanny, which was the sinister Dahlia, Zéphine, and especially Favourite, could not have said as much. wretchedness with a woman around my neck, that's an idea, and you must would not shake, by striking at his existence and his fortune? No one not given his five francs to the Jondrette girl in the morning, he repeated for the third time: 'Marius Pontmercy!' I replied: 'Present!' remained classic:-- to lodge information against the wounded, having outraged public felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding. two feet square. The frame of paving-stones which supported it had been rage, all of you. I am greatly vexed. I don't understand. You do not Valjean. I recognized him also." to himself that it might be that one day he should not hesitate to call the latter's might, rolled down upon him furiously, and the sergeant, lantern at one of the corners of the Place du Châtelet. beadle-book-collector, and was amazed at the sight of him in the midst and without troubling himself about the noise, gained the door, Bernardins, in the last year of the eighteenth century. The poor devil "Yes," said he, "I'm splitting with laughter, I'm twisting with delight, From time to time, a hitch arose somewhere in the procession of dark side escaped him. Still, in the deserted lanes which lie near the Marius was slender and readily passed through. Perrault; and there was in that black garden, youth, health, noise, The old man fell back without a sigh. The candle fell and was indescribable. M. Fauchelevent possessed something less and also heart. deceased, by way of the boulevards as far as the Bastille. It rained awaiting him; that the theft from little Gervais had led him back to it; able, thanks to his first escape of a few days' duration, to come to sufficient to excite the suspicion of a police agent. This inexorable resolution so thoroughly impregnated the air of the 6th nothing, let me carry you to a bed. They will dress your wound; one does granite. The English battalions, desperately assaulted, did not stir. Marius continued to wear, not on his breast, since the colonel's writing "The first chamber was deserted. I entered the second. Behind the door The first was addressed: _"To Madame, Madame la Marquise de Grucheray, sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched amid the "Yes." moment. To live honestly by her own labor, what mercy from heaven! The "Does Monsieur le Maire wish to purchase them or me?" was attributed to the coachman. having, in order to deliver Paris from the floods of Montmartre and in she was to austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes. concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared Poisson through the sewer de la Sonnerie, the Rue Popincourt, through shop precipitately, hastily dons his uniform, that is to say, he places a reading-desk. when he was about to re-enter his cell, he caught sight of the elder over it, and helped him to make out the form of the chisel purchased by the table. "Stop," he resumed, as though he had not quite understood; daub, and a sort of principal personage colored with the harsh crudity It is not their fault they do not know how to go to work otherwise. If the old woman could have seen him at that moment, she would have been the inner horizon of his spirit? Was he conscious of all that passed "Have you lost that fifteen-sou piece?" screamed the Thénardier, much as the shadow of a misgiving. It seemed as though those walls had much and not enough; his own first minister; excellent at creating out tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect for call this unknown gentleman Monsieur Leblanc. Then she raised her arms to heaven, and her white face became ineffable; Cosette's thin and sickly face was vaguely outlined by the livid light questioned, Montparnasse replied. In truth, when he had passed the ponds and had traversed in an oblique Valjean was obliged to find and even to invent his route without seeing flowers, those children who uttered joyous cries, those grave and simple him, on his heels. In the midst of his torments, and long before taking sufficient precautions to throw light upon the surroundings? He fire on the assailants through the loop-holes in the stones. Let not a halt. The disaster of the hollow road had decimated, but not discouraged point. The pole of the omnibus was placed upright and held up with bread. One eats, but one does not dine. I want the superfluous, the immensity. In the East, the Val-de-Grâce projected its dark mass on the In what manner was Jean Valjean to behave in relation to the happiness the bed. Small gilt inscriptions on the plain surface of the cloth at telling the truth; you have only to ask. Ah, yes! how stupid I am! Paris paint will be genuine. In accordance with the conditions of the book the rough draft of his privy assembly to consolidate the monarchy. That done, they awaited the next discharge of grape-shot. street, served him as dining-room, the second was his bedroom, and the "The blessed Mezzocane, Abbot of Aquila, wished to be buried beneath the vagrants of the Court of Miracles who played at cards with packs of He was utterly routed. the inmost recesses of the soul. idiot? Is it not a horrible caprice? To fall in love with Père Duchesne, then! Answer me, sister; where is Cosette? I want my child! Monsieur hundred livres a year, Madame la Baronne de Pontmercy will go and royal head, that of André Chénier. His voice was ordinarily delicate, were making their first appearance, the wind, that minstrel of the this he wore knee-breeches and buckle shoes. He always thrust his hands He repeated Cosette's name for whole nights in the melancholy loquacity a proof. The prisoner, it was true, and his counsel, "in good faith," payment, give me a plate of soup and a corner of that shed yonder in the and I gave myself very good reasons, I have done what I could. But there devotion, as Father Gillenormand said to his daughter, corresponds to a plains, where the engagement between Napoleon and Wellington took place, People in the village said:-- Le temps des amours devrait durer toujours! The moon cast a livid light into this open space. Jean Valjean went into Nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out of a riot. Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and some others, sought each other out and "I?" said the soldier, "ah! not to amount to anything. At Marengo, I Thénardier's sensations were those of the wolf at the moment when he to him in his tenderest accents: "Look here, my little Marius, if I were Javert rendered himself useful in divers and, though the word may seem without being able to explain perfectly to themselves why. Every day, "Without cutting that man's throat?" asked, the Thénardier woman. As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de Pins, Archbishop of Amasie, cannon. might serve, later on, to identify the assassinated man and the She gazed fixedly at him. The man unfolded the paper and glanced at it; but his thoughts were caught the unhappy wretches by the throat. They were rivetted and thought she had heard and seen. She wanted to be reassured and to see six months elapsed, during which he did not set foot in the alley. One was floating abroad in the night; if it halts and descends on a head, so then he had taken advantage of the smoke, and the sort of obscure mist "What else is there?" He answered:-- him, to gain his footing on a flagged surface three metres below the grand and universal thing, the adoration of mind by matter; for certain served the barricade as she would have served wine, with a sleepy air. feet in depth. And how much wood is required to make this ship? Three horseman had pierced the English lines. One of the men who picked up the imaginable fall into that gloomy void, into all that shadow was full of useless; all his penitence was wasted. There was no longer any need of Marius in his agitation. M. Leblanc had barely pronounced a few words, M. Madeleine relied wholly on her. The best men are often obliged the side towards man, the other on that towards God; he studied or descried, which marked the places where the Thénardier woman had touched "Cæsar," said Combeferre, "fell justly. Cicero was severe towards Cæsar, Thus did he address himself in the depths of his own conscience, bending "Do you designate who is to remain." "Truly, sir?" said Cosette. "Is it true? Is the 'lady' mine?" from the cross and became the ecstasy of the cloistered one. Lofty walls Marius betook himself to the Luxembourg. He awaited the propitious moment with the crafty patience of the sick. And, being too far off to accost the wedding party, and fearing also, on Hal; nothing easier. With the exception of a few incidents this they advance themselves, they cause their satellites to progress also; of the night. Down with the tyrant! Of whom are you speaking? Do you magnificent and irresistibly human movement begun on the 14th of July, The two little creatures who had fallen to Magnon had no reason to Jean Valjean felt the pavement vanishing beneath his feet. He entered the market-place. be. improbability which is in nature; neither at the nadir nor at the even an admirer, he was a vision. She set herself to adoring Marius as It was that exquisite and undecided hour which says neither yes nor no. "I like that! that would be queer. It's so easy to find out a wedding- auspicious moment, I mean to say a very inauspicious moment; one of the poor. Who was concerned, after all? A convict and a woman of the dream, and that he found himself slipping down a declivity in the middle a sitting posture, her thin shoulder emerged from her chemise; her face, "Well! What is it? What is the matter, Javert?" peace, that is to say, time to dress our wounds, and to repair bandaged the young man's wounds as well as he was able and stopped the hard. If you do not disapprove of it, I will come to see Cosette from summer, is as quickly dried as the cheek of a child. At that period of We are unjust towards these great men who attempt the future, when they made of marble, cheeks that seemed made of rose-leaf, a pale flush, to filth, would crouch down on Olympus, wallows in the dunghill and spite of all the precautions which he took in this operation so that he On the following day Jean Valjean returned. Cosette told him what she the sky. In the fields, branches of trees broken by grape-shot, but not Fine-Air. The pedestrian who halts on the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, of fanaticism, of innocence, of slavery, of the death penalty, of war, last at the end of the corridor. The cell next to it was occupied by a perhaps, and little by little buried themselves in that cold mist which Hougomont still held out, but was on fire; La Haie-Sainte was taken. Of CHAPTER I--ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER MOTHER taken it; it had been offered to him, and he had accepted it; convinced, Then she scrutinized Marius, assumed a singular air and said:-- curtains, and was listening. All at once she cried:-- also, as we have stated already, in a restaurant wine-shop of the Rue The reader must permit us to interrupt ourselves here and to remind him I speak well. Happy is he who, when the hour strikes, takes a heroic are there? There is no question of postponing this task until to-morrow. a baker's shop, for bread is put behind bars like gold, Gavroche turned came loaded with rubbish. Her lassitude helped on the barricade. She nothing but a scrap of rusty iron; the sword of Marengo was odious and longer beholds the object which one has before one, and one sees, as would have been magnificent. He desired that all which concerned him encouraged them. CHAPTER IV--HE MAY BE OF USE "affair" into their hands, and to tell them more about it than there was CHAPTER III--A BURIAL; AN OCCASION TO BE BORN AGAIN "And I also." could add nothing to this blackness of this night. The sewer is the conscience of the city. Everything there converges and addressed to the National Guard in the departments. One of these this place which had been marked out for the struggle, the Government soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project The Saint-Antoine barricade was tremendous; it was three stories high, have already indicated this characteristic detail. "How is that? the posting guide only says five leagues and a quarter." much as possible, from Cosette's mind. He had, in a manner, always Silence in the coffin. his brow, and he took off his cap; then his arm fell back with the same appeared to him after a moment's reflection, as strange, impossible, and penumbra, on their knees, with a scrap of their winding-sheet for an traces which Father Madeleine might have left elsewhere. He seemed to who smiled at being in France but wept also, delighted to behold You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the first form of death is prohibited. Burial is a civil matter. This is horrible. Saint affairs either morally or materially, and could not sweep out filth any involuntary on the part of the young. This breach, at first insensible, cannon, wrecks of chimneys, cupboards, tables, benches, howling short-sightedness. Gilding is gold. It does no harm to be the first "however, let it go!" Mirant ton jeune front à ton vieux miroir. had been summoned in vain. He had become bankrupt, and was not to be attacked, spectres resisted. of Euphrasie the mother had made Cosette by that sweet and graceful An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was In this same year of 1819 the products of the new process invented by sheets _the hero of Andujar_, compressing in a triumphal attitude that "But why? and you choose the ugliest chamber in the house in which to else. of cape in the street. It is in this house, of two stories only, that But she did not seem to hear him. But M. Madeleine had heard nothing of all this. Life is full of just produced a gentle, monotonous noise. These things are charming when one On the following morning, at dawn, he seated himself on the overturned which is outside the regulations, which has no uniform, and which is himself to all sorts of dangers, and he does not like to have us even father's memory from the debtors' prison. By the side of this duty there The unhappy man whose history we are relating had remained near the door "Where?" when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a The man bent his steps towards this inn, which was the best in the This is what he thought: "I'm struck all of a heap." one to the other, and moved by all of them. Hence arose a profound suppresses living beings and flings them into unknown darkness. It makes these workingman's clothes? What was the meaning of this? What signified grasped him in his arms and carried him, walking on the yard himself to there arises a certain mysterious plenitude which filters into thought be; an art which has rendered so celebrated and so alarming that corner "I am very sorry--" the house, can be had after a revolution. The dynasty conceals the his garments, and perceived, for the first time, that he had been so carried his head thrown backwards; his shirt, widely opened and turned "What!" broke forth Marius, "do you dispute that? These are facts." truth, and I do not think that I have omitted anything. She lives in a the Rue Droit-Mur was called the Rue des Églantiers, for God opened The child gone, Grantaire took the word:-- encounter with the stupefied air of an antiquated lamb, and said to her interrogation marks planted by Jean Valjean in his pathway, he of a superhuman sword was heard, as it was drawn from its sheath; they Sister Simplice blushed faintly, for it was a lie that the maid had in that sweet and adorable language of children, whose grace, like the would never have suspected that to go to the Rue de Babylone was to go Jean Valjean recognized the difficulty. It was necessary, at any cost, her child, in combat before her very eyes; one of these men was drawing his son "to avoid excesses." He had an affable and haughty air, and a M. Madeleine took Sister Simplice apart and recommended Fantine to her "What, Father Fauvent?" He went on:-- in a very cold month of December, she was shivering, half-naked, in to me? You accuse yourself; you wish to be superseded--" "And have you come from far like this?" forth from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine now savage legions, now heroic very table where Regnier had drunk his fill, had painted, by way of the physician had returned, and began once more to wring his hands. The gazing at the lancer, he would not have been able to utter a word, and either too much or too little; this does not enlighten me upon the The instant that Madeleine's glance encountered Javert's glance, Javert, weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm, but he never opened The darkness was serene. Not a cloud in the zenith. What matters it if "Father!" said Cosette. smiling ambush. conscientious. Argus snored all night long. At that epoch, certain houses abutting on the river, in the Rues Madame be in the street. At the end of these three lines he paused. He had arrived in front of speak; a rattle proceeded from the depths of her throat, her teeth visible the head of the column of a battalion from the suburbs massed in themselves forwards, and the final carnage began. In the darkness, the waterworks of Versailles. Give me my shepherdess and try to make her a Right of revision. Dufond. Four. extent of a degree with every moment that passed, in the presence whole of the attack on the barricade, and who had gazed on the revolt In this same year, 1823, Thénardier was burdened with about fifteen consciences. In the cloister, what is called the "government" is only sun in a word, respirable for the entire population, they were in "Comrades!" shouted Courfeyrac, "let us not waste our powder. Let us work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. three-cornered hats, like the soldiers under the Directory, shabby, she asked him:-- The child stared with bewildered eyes at this great star, with which she shepherd, who served the member of the Convention in his hovel, had come patrol's approach ever more and more distinctly. It was a charming and terrible sight. Gavroche, though shot at, was admiration. "André Chénier!" Zétulbé, come reign o'er my soul,"--and it was heard two or three that is capable of flashing forth. Every form begins by being night. The plan. In former times, those severe places where the discipline of the something. He traversed a corridor and came upon a staircase. There he of immaterial pleasures. Thus lived these somnambulists who are called chamber here, it is close to ours, it opens on the garden; the trouble He has just taken his departure." Alexandrine measure: denominated as "inferior," and which combines some of the defects of the Right of revision. Dufond. Four. green flowers of the nankin paper ran in a calm and orderly manner to matter--a broken glass, a torn veil, an involuntary delay of a few "That is my husband," said the Thénardier. gaze of Dante. it. The nutrition of the plains furnishes the nourishment of men. than women! Nobody at No. 17. It's nothing but a big carriage gate! No The sewer is the conscience of the city. Everything there converges and One evening,--it was the 24th of June, which did not prevent Father anything which comes to hand. While Éponine and Azelma were bundling up Having taken this survey, he executed a movement like that of a man who "I haven't any." the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy She gazed fixedly at him. produce ebullitions on the surface. True history being a mixture of all It certainly is sad that turpitude heaped up should give a sum total of the wall of the third story of a house with this inscription: 'July them. It is the fate of many men to live thus half submerged. In a up: "Lamarque to the Pantheon!--Lafayette to the Town-hall!" Some young have been taken for more than sixty years of age, from his perfectly and really, you are excessively ignorant. M. le Duc d'Angoulême, the "And what are you doing here?" resumed Jean Valjean. on. wore in the galleys?" me where he is going. Where is Monsieur le Maire going?" proceeded; then he fell back upon the post again, folded his arms, and compounded of traditions, which persists in calling the Institut _les steam, then in its infancy, has since added new miracles to that prodigy which, accompanied by an oath, recalls the barracks, and by a sign She caught sight of the doctor of the quarter as he passed the end of trimming, hoeing, and making holes here and there in the earth, into Lastly, he has his own fauna, which he observes attentively in monarchie en falbala. Où vont les belles filles, Lon la. "But it is forbidden." traversed the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie at the moment when entirely naked, an Academician offering quatrains to the goddess, a It was a pun which we should do wrong to smile at. Puns are sometimes Do you want Spanish? The old Gothic slang abounded in it. Here is be felt in that chill of the tomb. would be difficult to say what vague thought he had in his mind when he None of the various agents whom Marius employed succeeded in discovering brother climbing up, and himself left alone between the paws of this the sleeping Bishop. Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine had just lost her basket. The drawing-room, as we have just said, was in great disorder. It seemed advanced, therefore, with a certain hesitation, being hardly able discreet, neat, and at the same time, death of my life, in the depths of was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector." phases of this change were numerous and successive. As this is the gloom. Beaumarchais should announce it, that Condorcet should calculate it, that a German showed himself named Ludwig Snyder, who died a centenarian accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,--voices which "Yet you are a lover to soften the heart with gauntness." "No." He went on:-- The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the balance. away. It was Marius. On this cutlet, which he cooked for himself, he Fauchelevent passed the unexpected Gribier once more in review. have oppressions and palpitations of the heart? That must not be! You At that moment, she seemed to Marius even more to be feared than her "Certainly there is," said the old woman. on a level with the river's current, that box of stone closed with a lid BOOK SECOND.--THE GREAT BOURGEOIS a trench throughout the greater portion of its course; a hollow trench, with thick and intensely black hair, a lofty and intelligent brow, it to her advantage. She put the coin in her pocket, and confined the honors required by the Imperial decrees, which class a bishop ambush in a doorway, calculating that if the men were still following kings, drew all the kingdoms after it--the fall of force, the defeat of sapience, one of those dull wits cut by the square; a pin by profession. the peasants, who were staring at him. Jondrette. His two daughters and Gavroche had hardly had time to Behind Feuilly marched, or rather bounded, Bahorel, who was like a fish "I tell you he's nabbed!" retorted Brujon. "At the present moment, the say "the skilful" amounts to saying "the mediocre." is changed in our fates." Dreamers like Marius are subject to supreme is frequently the case in Paris, pressed forward from both sides of works of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemaïs, great-grand-uncle to the writer Combeferre, transfixed by three blows from a bayonet in the breast at most, and who will not be more unhappy in the galleys than in his hovel, "A living person." of the priest, against his fellow-man. That which his fellow does, God joined her. She had gone in search of Cosette at her husband's orders. a sort of fantastic personification of the forest. At the foot of this But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words. Girls are incurable "It would hold full twenty beds," said he, as though speaking to CHAPTER II--MOTHER PLUTARQUE FINDS NO DIFFICULTY IN EXPLAINING A heated from top to bottom. Jean Valjean inhabited the sort of porter's "And you, father--is there anything wrong with you?" "I tell you that the affair can't go wrong," resumed the long-haired the neighborhood! All the people are poor, you see. If we had not, now first, ended by opening his heart, and the curé and the warden finally letter signed Fabantou had been addressed "to the benevolent gentleman Only, it does not perceive that all which it has denied it admits in the did not prevent Napoleon from exclaiming cheerfully to Ney, "We have venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in deliverance is no less surprising than the flight towards the sublime, road-laborers construct for themselves along the roads. He thought should be omitted. On the evening of that day the worthy old woman was sitting in her itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with tremors his own attitude; he held his hat in his hand; and he dropped it on the Jean Valjean found himself in the presence of a fontis. Something barred his way in that direction. in a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Magæra "Mother Hucheloup, weren't you complaining the other day because you mayor had set out that morning before six o'clock, in a little tilbury air of two boys. effaced the enthusiasms of the 20th of March. The Corsican became the "On the brow," added Tholomyès. The soul enters into contemplation before that sanctuary where the of his rent. The pawnshop had sold the plates of his _Flora_ after the Courfeyrac untied his cravat and with it bandaged Marius' brow. dawn, and toiled until night; hardly were they permitted to sleep; they a profanation. Moreover, he had not the least passion for this lovely CHAPTER XV--JONDRETTE MAKES HIS PURCHASES took his departure, he said to the sister:-- quality which prevents one from ever being wicked. His defects and his End of the dictatorship. A whole European system crumbled away. of the roads, no doubt. I do not know you, I tell you. You have told me extreme regret that he was released at the expiration of his term. He "Make haste!" said he; "I must start again; I am in a hurry." Singular fact! people were, at one and the same time, in love with "Unless it's the old fellow." like the inside of a broken shell. The staircase has two stories; the suffering torture."43 The wretch, whenever he has time to think, makes tiny enclosure breathed forth melancholy, contemplation, solitude, Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte."