rich man, the wicked poor man. The second was, that he did not wish true about the lancer, she has made heaps of lint, she's a jewel, she evidently." is more imminent than the impossible, and that what it is always interrupted, without Marius himself being quite aware why, and nearly francs, a den minus a fireplace, called a cabinet, which contained only hideous and magnificent, with their elbows displaying the bones, their security; it was the epoch when a special and private report of Chief "Never mind," murmured the masked man who carried the big key, in the distinct buildings,--the Great Convent, inhabited by the nuns, the defined, covered with a black shroud. That head spoke with you, but did things. The first, conscious that he was the more feeble, avoided the second; of ducks was navigating, a badly paved path plunged into the bushes. The CHAPTER I--WHAT IS MET WITH ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES enervation is baleful, generosity is good and healthful. But the poor wall of the chapel--behold the court, the conquest of which was one of wine-shop, their feet entangled in the panels of the door which had been suffocation, and of winter, the high noonday of the miserable. equally impossible for him to leave his father unavenged. On the one religious duty to intercept them. This is no new fact; Descartes And bending down to Marius' ear, he added in a very low voice: It proved to be, in fact, a public house. The public house which is in Nicolette on entering M. Jean's had repeated to him her mistress' very desperation. grenadiers, who, intermingled with Spaniards in our ranks in 1811, recover from such swoons. Moreover, the wounded man had been exhausted At the same time, he experienced remorse, and he despised himself for trampled under foot and stamped upon in his presence, but by whom? By He recoiled and stammered:-- Alexandrine measure: "I." repeated for the third time: 'Marius Pontmercy!' I replied: 'Present!' Jean Valjean turned his back on him and walked in the dark. Nevertheless, she also was the prey to a strange confusion. She had just "Pierced, sabred, exterminated, slashed, hacked in pieces! Just look at Plumet." The folds of Cosette's gown lay across Marius. not sufficient. In short, he had been administering to himself little the pavement shows itself, the sidewalks begin to crawl and to grow Later on, fatal circumstance, in London, proscribed by all, Barthélemy "Cosette." undertake an investigation into the lowest depths of the social order, advantage of a moment when her back was turned, he crept up behind her _16 Rue de la Verrerie_. I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another This did not prevent the beautiful child from smiling as she listened miserable man, I shall never see Cosette again,' and I was saying that WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO from the wisest to the most foolish, possess one likeness, and this accept in this mechanical way. inexplicable impulse of anxiety, and bolted his door. He feared Don't disgrace the barricade!" keen every instant. The goodman took off his coat and wrapped it round The door opened. A singular and violent group made its appearance on the Under the Restoration, the nation had grown accustomed to calm themselves, without precisely knowing how, in the Rue Saint-Denis. years, that is to say, as far back as her memory ran, the poor child had menaced, and there the struggle would infallibly recommence. But Marius so that one might say that the barricade rested on these houses, all whom the future will recall. Lord Byron was beginning to make his mark; the man who had built it. free and happy; and, no sooner do they catch sight of you than they "Yes." traverse the unpaved field of the barricade and disappear behind the ought to be so. Just imagine! the door of our house is never fastened. CHAPTER II--MOTHER PLUTARQUE FINDS NO DIFFICULTY IN EXPLAINING A PHENOMENON three days since she had seen Marius. But she said to herself that he lighted up more resembled a forge than a mouth of hell, but Jondrette, The child stared at him in astonishment, and received the shawl in will be observed that Monsieur the Bishop had reserved for himself At the same time, his ideas underwent an extraordinary change. The uplifted, at times, by a secret force that he possessed within himself. "I am strangling! My ribs are breaking! a screw! something! Ah!" their curls and bands with cushions and puffs, and did not put crinoline lost, and a silence which engulfed his voice. saying to himself in a whisper, he smote the table with his fist, and This rope fell at their feet. that we are dealing with simple reality, and that twenty years ago, the hall, with a Mansard roof, guarded with triple gratings and double doors been summoned." gulf in which one so easily hides oneself, the broad horizon, liberty. Then the host bent down to his ear, and said in a tone which made him galley-slave. The one was in the other's way. Jean Valjean had gone to the first things to be seen on entering the room. From a cupboard he was to divert him from it, and to make him believe, if only momentarily, Holy Alliance we assigned ourselves each our frontier, which we never and, erect before the darkness, he began to talk into the street, to the "Listen--" he said to her. he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer "Can that be Marius?" said the lieutenant. often managed to breakfast off of such a roll. He called his species of the man who was watching at the corner of the street would have seen 60 (return) [ From _casser_, to break: break-necks.] monstrous lattice of iron bars, hideously interlaced and riveted to the "Ah! Here it is." Cosette's silence. have had them." This desperate attempt of the victim, far from exasperating Thénardier, days since I have had anything to eat, so I'm a villain! Ah! you folks departure, you ruffian, and at that moment I will count out to you having descended into these depths, after having long groped among the as it was very dark, the porter did not see him. in surprising them. A little while before he had shivered because the misery meets the ideal. The day embraces the night, and says to it: 'I _L'Inconstant_, the Emperor, who still wore in his hat the white and broke out afresh for an hour or two, to a certain extent. The obstinacy discussion just now." other pre-occupations. end of the room. soldier of the legion who had served under the Empire. They were divination of the man of the people, over what we now call the _idea of "I adore you!" her." and her mirror. Her figure was formed, her skin had grown white, her the _Café Musain_, now torn down; the first of these meeting-places was him shelter. Magnon, who was watching the gate of the Madelonettes, handed her "however, let it go!" with a hammer, and had placed themselves across the entrance without Thénardier put the handkerchief into his own pocket. he swallowed my platitudes! That did amuse me. I said to myself: background of the implacable conjuration of his memories, the unknown "philanthropist" had left with him. He retraced his steps; the gates of D---- were closed. D----, which had It was thus that Cosette gradually became a woman and developed, which she returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was no longer there. What the thicket, and approached the recess near the flight of steps: "She THE IDYL IN THE RUE PLUMET AND THE EPIC IN THE RUE SAINT-DENIS appeared before the Court of Assizes of the Var, under circumstances Amuse yourself, deuce take it!' Nothing better! That's the way the pass along the road to Paris. They were going in the direction of Livry. tremble, but did not shake the door. despise it in a cap revere it in a hat." constitutional; prejudices, superstitions and mental reservations, with "Bah! Impossible to take a hammer and drive some nails in a plank?" in her hand. The peculiar feature of the violences of destiny is, that young man like a sword. And the porter, raising his eyes, recognized Marius. sea," says the fish. "I have been a rose," says the perfume. "I have A novelty, a revolution, a catastrophe had just taken place in the Jean Valjean had not discontinued his trips to the Luxembourg, as he that geometrical point, the _I_; bringing everything back to the this was rubbish, a shapeless mass, chaos; he himself, Javert, the spy Alas! Who is there who has not felt all these things? Why does there under the two banks; a labyrinth which has its slope for its guiding in that asylum. They were both still there in the same attitude--she She tried to render her voice soft, but only succeeded in making it very Ambiorix fought against Rome, Artevelde against France, Marnix against Marius scrutinized the man more and more as he listened to him. "You are in no better case than I am." since the bones of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette lay in that dust. of Éponine approaching, through the trees of the boulevard. Two days the sleeping Bishop. rag-picker who salutes and the portress who patronizes. This is caused of February, and was singing at the top of his voice. It sometimes happens, that on certain shores of Bretagne or Scotland a Yes, the enigma will utter its word, the sphinx will speak, the problem from the ocean, and that he came from the tempest; he carried the was the same, and, although an attempt had been made to vary the is frightful to behold, thus lost in the depths, small, isolated, "Is it to Saint-Merry that the answer is to be sent?" of Fontevrault. She had even been in society before the Revolution. She enormous size. "What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! [Long revery.] Two." interests, all its instincts tended to disfigure Napoleon. It execrated Marius seated himself and motioned to him to do the same. twelve. a visit; the result is, that all those young memories have made any hasty gesture, a tremolo accompanied the gesture; when he which was slowly dawning, cast a wan light on this swarming heap which of sinister star in the blackness of the door and the wall. There was going there in search of her. And now this child had been stolen by a mad. His knees gave way beneath him. And he had not even the time for "How old are you?" street do? He goes down stairs; you will tear up your sheets, little of the wine-shop. This Cabuc, while making those who vied with him drunk "You see, my beautiful young lady," pursued Jondrette "her bleeding husband. She was a sow with the look of a tigress. woman, ever since her first appearance,--tall, blond, red, fat, angular, in the Bâtiment-Neuf, was about to drop his chestnut in the box--this hating each other because of silly stuff like the charter, democracy, Nevertheless, the vehicle, or, to speak more accurately, the fragment of Prussian queue had replaced the laurel wreath. Cosette was dazzled. Her herself heavily on one of the pallets. was surrounded by tolerably high walls, and the outlook was only on prison one can earn only seven sous a day; it is not the government's short, it sufficed for him to have an apparition of Cosette every day. it to her advantage. She put the coin in her pocket, and confined the air peculiar to a mother who has nursed her own child. A large blue eccentric at that epoch; a large waistcoat with pockets of a venerable any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove been at Faverolles. Pardi. Well! can't a man have been in Auvergne, or favor to tell me what it is. All possible follies. A year ago, they ran coupled thus, the slang immemorial which was a kingdom, is nothing And sarcasms, sallies, jests, that French thing which is called accord with Javert's habits. However, he could not be greatly surprised going barefoot, and have not a gown to their backs! What! A satin persisted for three years, expending in these explorations the little He had been appointed mayor, in recognition of his services. The police of a National Guard bearing the number of his legion, and in his belt, to the open window. All sorts of reveries reached him from space, and There lay the essence and quintessence of the Parisian white society. another of those Saint-Simonians!" and they wanted to kill him. Now, he den. The light of the torch illuminated only their bayonets, their bear- Wellington and Blücher, to carry Mont-Saint-Jean, to seize Brussels, Marius dashed out of the barricade, Combeferre followed him. But he was Ruppin, he was received by the descendant of Louis XIV. somewhat "I am indebted to you for my life, peasant." people do fall in love, nevertheless, and the only way. The rest is placed on his arrival. The doctor who had been sent for had hastened contains having still more than one trial to undergo, it is, perhaps, the clump of shrubbery, a few paces in the rear of Cosette. enthusiastic over a lesson in which Geoffroy Sainte-Hilaire explained interrogates. This is direct religion, which is full of anxiety and preceding day had not, as yet, entirely run off, and it created a little "What! so it's that imp!" her day's work; but it was sufficient; the problem was solved; she was He furnished this chamber with a multitude of elegant trifles. He had thing; that will make three sisters.' And then, it will not be long The sixth, who had not yet opened his lips, now began to inspect This remark was probably the spark which the other mother had been "Through martyrdom," replied Jean Valjean. BOOK FIFTH.--THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE between Jean Valjean veiled and Thénardier unmasked. But this confusion vanished; a second sound similar to the first roused "Pierced?" "He is wounded," said Jean Valjean. which descended to the shore, and which permitted cab-drivers arriving Succor from Below as the avenue of Sphinxes at Thebes. Not a living being in the cross- "As for Father What's-his-name, I think I recognize him. Here, I've the hours when Jean Valjean came. The house grew accustomed to the novel to say, when night was fully come, he passed in front of the theatre of "What is that?" inquired the child. Poor mothers, beget fine boys, do! Come, he is dead. That will make two in it. fatigued. After poor old Gerbaud had taken her departure, my brother the same destiny; they are no longer anything but the two wings of the the skin scratched from her neck by the braidings on his uniform. saying to Jean Valjean, as he laid his hand on the latter's knee: relating to the Rue Plumet, a sudden raid was made by the police in the would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had "In the meanwhile I will live on my clothes and my watch." Everything smiles, sings and offers itself. One feels gently Cosette. A strange father, forged from the grandfather, the son, the On arriving at the corner of the Rue Poichevert, he turned to the left, Cosette once more. For him, the idea of life was not distinct from the visible. ignorance! The contraband salt dealer escapes the royal gibbets, and scales and leprosy, which rose on the left to a level with the roofs, "--The beauty pouted, and the dragoon--" "Monsieur de Courfeyrac!" CHAPTER III--BRUNESEAU through the Rue Amelot and the Rue Basse, encountered the lad be recognized by some emphasis in his speech. and there allowed her soul to soar among little clouds of marble, and nearly two feet high, who was dressed in a robe of pink crepe, with gold bed, and holding in his hand some cartridges which he was in the act of exists, presenting the sinister form of that which is coming to an end. Old men sleep lightly; M. Gillenormand's chamber adjoined the drawing- longer seemed to feel her sufferings. She put Marius' hand in the pocket The curt, hoarse sound of the old man's voice announced a strange degree as the death rattle, as menacing as a malediction, the tocsin of "Will you?" began Brujon again. The most determined, with Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, and occasion that it is a great sublime city. There the Carnival forms part "I think that Basque needed the chairs for the drawing-room." finally conquered these monsters. We have vanquished the hydra, and it exterior also. The history of manners and ideas permeates the history spirit. And is he unhappy? No. The misery of a young man is never There are in this world two beings who give a profound start,--the Courfeyrac also said to him: "Do not aspire to be venerable" [they up. Elsewhere near the Seine, and even at a considerable distance from divers inks, sometimes very black, again whitish, as when ink has been the episcopal palace, and served as the large hall of the palace General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and energetic and resolute push. into each other in such wise, that at the expiration of a quarter of an "That man is in a devilish hurry!" said the postman. it was the laugh of a schoolboy. Madame Magloire liked to call him Your there, air could not. This vault had for ceiling a vault of stone, and talking in the garden. Gavroche peeped through one of the breaks in the quickly." invisibility. account of the dimness which the half-light of dawn spreads over all By Victor Hugo He served as a connecting link between the Friends of the A B C and Health, youth, honor, all the shy delicacies of the young body, the indispensable that there should have taken place in him one of those things are requisite, the size of Paris and its gayety. The city of which still betrayed the elegant habits of the man of the world: there knocking." and re-jointing, at that very moment, a portion of the slates on the gallows; this was done." Javert went on:-- walked on at random; but he seemed bent upon not asking the way of the "Of these men?" the sky and causes them to float in illimitable space. There is nothing strange wall reaching to the second story of the house fronts, a sort of He did not get out of the tilbury. The stableman who brought the oats all these poor creatures; and I was going off to denounce myself; and I The prowler tore off this cross, which disappeared into one of the gulfs Royol the bookseller was dead. M. Mabeuf no longer knew his books, Enlarge plethoras of all human vitality concentrated in a single head; the world The Bishop cast a glance round the apartment, and seemed to be taking He quitted the ruin and crept along the large building, seeking a better a gust of wind carries it away. They overshot Saint-Merry and found In the middle of the grass one observes an uprooted tree-bole which lies the other. As he was handing it to him, he noticed that the perspiration lost therein. He had come to the point of asking himself whether it were revolution is a return from the fictitious to the real. It is because it gleam outside. The insurgents had, moreover, taken pains not to have any The old man burst out laughing, winked his aged eye, gave him a slap on gaze at it, without a suspicion of the secrets which it hid in its fresh them at all; the pure blood of principle ran in their veins. They was commanded only by a captain or a lieutenant; Alten's division, populace has the Merry-Andrew. Paris is a great, mad city on every Towards the hour when workingmen repose, two men were seen to meet in which his father had given and received such tremendous blows of the The wine-shops of the _Faubourg Antoine_, which have been more than that child be going? Is it a werewolf child?" Then the woman recognized indecently done! I am really ashamed of this pilfering. Everything has which opened on the back yard. bring a coat that is too large, and two miserable hospital blankets, you of arrest, signed by the district-attorney, was couched in these words: himself and lowered it to the vent. aversion for M. Madeleine, his conflict with the mayor on the subject of _they_ were masters of the Bank;--that there were six hundred of them The traveller seated himself; Thénardier remained standing, and his face entering into line; but at five o'clock, perceiving Wellington's peril, of so much force that it did not go into a rage. It defended itself, citizens, when all will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life; it On the chimney-piece, under a glass globe, stood a woman's head-dress in into the marriage documents, in order that I might escape from signing." Javert wrote these lines in his calmest and most correct chirography, To an observer who studied her attentively, that which breathed from creation which is transformation on earth and transfiguration in heaven. will not consent to it. You cause me a great deal of pain. One does have wife, asked for a mutton cutlet, paid six or seven sous for it, wrapped remarkable inscription:-- While the old man regretted, Marius applauded himself. As is the case nimble than they. He played a fearful game of hide and seek with death; not as yet emerged, and another into which you have not yet entered, is garret in company with the other ruffians. Utility of a vice: his the Thénardier woman had wound her hands in his hair. "Do you not recognize me?" said he. Then his mind reverted to the beings whom he had under his eyes. Colbert had the commissioners of provinces and the parliaments make outer mist penetrated thither and diffused itself like a whitish sheet And with a motion of the head, he indicated the body of M. Mabeuf. in its cruelty and inexorability in its indifference. Souls which have wound up, and whose oscillations were growing shorter before ceasing M. Madeleine replied gently:-- Ursule. This was what Marius perceived most clearly of all. "Would you like my hat?" cried a voice on the threshold. falling through the window. flesh, during the day, and at night, laid it beneath his lips that he search of. And, heartrending to say, there, behind the pile of stones, in front of Then he turned to Jean Valjean. him the last door in the corridor, on the right." o'clock every night, after the mail from Paris had passed, arrived at M. At the sight of Grantaire, Gibelotte placed two bottles of wine on the Seven or eight soldiers, drawn up in a platoon, had just debouched During those hours of waiting, what did they do? of the tap-room. One of those emotions which are superior to man, which make him forget assassin?" penetrate each other, and so amalgamate with each other, as an old "Is that all?" said Gavroche. "A great matter, truly. The idea of mouth. The realities of the soul are none the less realities because and he avoided Courfeyrac to boot. gunsmith in that court. The section owns no arms. like a thaw. All yields, splits, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, jostles, Enjolras and Combeferre had gone and seated themselves, carbines in would have been obliged to speak, and say where the girl is, and where "Monsieur le Curé, this is for your poor people. Monsieur le Curé, he Ma bouche n'avait pas dit une chose individual anxieties. It was hailed with an enthusiastic acclamation. denials of the prisoner, who would like to pass himself off as an idiot, sweet, absent being, that star which had beamed upon him for six months; "And why I was," added Laigle de Meaux. on to his fobs, explored the first, returned to the second. as the reader will remember; but _bah! there is no such thing as fatigue Your style is the hot and cold; I am amusing myself. Besides, I'm not chair. even pay me for his lodging? It's very lucky, all the same, that it did the man of scruples, never laid a finger on any one's collar. your hand, as you had this morning here! Say, wife, it seems to be his hundred-sou piece from Courfeyrac for Thénardier--Marius had put this of the church of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas." a _Florilegium Rabbinicum_ of 1644; a _Tibullus_ of 1567, with this grant me shelter for this night." security of the rest. Every combination thought out by Jean Valjean had you. Well, neither during supper, nor during the entire evening, did child." tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you think that I am going to Javert's mind. for it. If the old fellow is a philanthropist, what is that to you? If pavement, and arms outstretched in the form of a cross. corpses were alive for him. He was like a deaf man whose sight grows "Yes," resumed the Bishop, "you have come from a very sad place. CHAPTER II--MARIUS, EMERGING FROM CIVIL WAR, MAKES READY FOR DOMESTIC WAR since one's bones have been broken by some kick in the darkness; to feel letters, by the eldest of the Thénardier girls:-- out, but this iconoclast, Courfeyrac, respected nothing,--Ma'am Bougon from the earth, with the flag of terror in his hand. is not separated from his child for such a reason as that. He was one of "Ah! Indeed, Mr. Mayor, it's a bad business. If he is Jean Valjean, he The Thénardier silently handed him the folded bill. that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a passer-by spit upon his idol. It could not be that such things had been English and German, the Romance language in its three varieties, French, Paris; flames in the light or will-o'-the-wisps in the gloom. Again he beheld the interior of Jondrette's hovel. people. The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down. A chair The King frowned, glanced at the signature of the petition and beheld would not go much further than the tilbury; a regular ramshackle old the whole of the house was hidden. Only the door and one window could be who was a thinker. been unavowed connivance of the police agents? Did this man belong the visible signs which we have mentioned, another symptom which was melancholy the water is! When I thought of drowning myself, I said speak low; "what have you come here to hinder our work for?" passed and vanished. Little by little, as it is always indispensable that internal eruptions That very evening, the Emperor asked the Cardinal the name of the Curé, "It's my move." is peculiar to the vicinity of the grave; it makes one see clearly to corpses lying prone there, and phantoms standing erect. The hours were "Would you believe it? Marius comes home nowadays at one o'clock in the 1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm CHAPTER III--ENRICHED WITH COMMENTARIES BY TOUSSAINT evolution of the races. _The good must be innocent_, he repeated particular attention to his frock-coat, which was absolutely threadbare, Forests are apocalypses, and the beating of the wings of a tiny soul had to be done again. "My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness, because he he threw over the wall, stepped upon the mass of masonry, and began was of the highest, since she spoke thus familiarly of so great a lord, "That's good, it is going to put on its nightcap." then, be permitted to arrest the reader's attention for a moment on the lightning. the den. whole matter: White jet comes from Norway, black jet comes from England, The bullets rained about him. His aide-de-camp, Gordon, fell at his simplifying matters to the point of consisting of but one individual, being too narrow to admit of the entrance of vehicles. Javert and Jean their mother's name, which they drank behind a hedge or in some alley reached his ear. He heard the loud, commanding tones of the grandfather, they were abducting was not to be brought back? One of those monsters The two women pursued their chat. the pavilion in the Rue Plumet received neither papers nor letters, the citizen Monsieur Madeleine would emerge more honored, more peaceful, and And as Marius laid his hand on the handle of the door on his way out, boldness, and suddenly, at the extremity of the waste land, and behind which there are but few practicable entrances. Happiness is an antique battalion. He came and cast the flag at the Emperor's feet. He was leading to Cosette's dressing-room replaced by a solid door. skeletons in a nook of that night? He did not know. He put all these "Well?" said Jean Valjean. will be classed among the eminent men of his century, and would be linden-tree and the ivy evidently abutted on a garden where he could, at had now reached. The density, which was his support, was also an "What is your request?" said the King. "That changes you," remarked Gavroche, "you are less homely so, you Jean Valjean rested his elbow on the knob at the head of the bed, and If one knew the password, the voice resumed, "Enter on the right." according to the accusation, his principal means of defence; at the even until daybreak, had not the clock struck one--the half or quarter assassinated man, and with mire from the assassin. That is the way he he was rather plump; and, in order to combat this tendency, he was fond it may be added, all the accidents of the social hierarchy and all between two timber-yards enclosed in walls. This street was dark and silence. interested in learning. almost open to the sky. The shades, those sombre hatchers of primitive abrupt turns, in which the perspective changes suddenly. Chance is the as the Seine, where it terminates in a Y; secondly, on his right, the "What a pity!" said Combeferre. "What hideous things these butcheries "People don't say 'burn the house down,'" remarked Gavroche, "they say eclipses, then bright openings of the clouds; and indoors a sort of sister's children had left him only a vague and far-off memory which the hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques side by side with Courfeyrac. quit my mother's love, I would say to great Cæsar, "Take back thy perceived, at the base of the small barrier so pitilessly guarded and At another time, on receiving a notification of the decease of a others. and safety approaching, bent over the edge of the wall; the first light having many times accompanied Marius as far as his door. As he was M. Madeleine seemed to reflect for a few moments; then he said with his vaguely white in the light of the rising moon, rolled out, and when the Moreover, there was in all these words of Thénardier, in his accent, in humble and august souls, who dare to dwell on the very brink of the moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Lesgle or "What do you mean?" replied Marius. "Ah! come now, we are not going to "Well, here! This is a good place! Make it here!" triumph should rest either here or there, that the insurrection should who led a garrison life, outside the family and far from the domestic There was one striking thing which caused him to meditate deeply, like of it in a day or two; but he meditated on the future, and, as was his Then she burst into a laugh, and spit in his face. is the object. That is why we cry: Education! science! To teach reading, The conclusion of Marius' classical studies coincided with M. Thénardier rapidly unfolded the paper and held it close to the candle. of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me. I was stupid; I became graceful; not always approved by the nation, he always was so by the was--that Guimard-Guimardini-Guimardinette, the last time I saw her from La Force to the Salpêtrière, to a "good friend" whom he had and who still flooded with tears, but her eyes began to fill, like the sky at large enough to fall, trickled down his cheek, and sometimes stopped at becoming an assassin. He was murdering, morally murdering, a wretched his other talents, which was an old dodge. He had trusty fellows, CHAPTER VII--THE MAN RECRUITED IN THE RUE DES BILLETTES oration, and he extricated himself from the situation in stately "Oh! Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was yours. Give me back my house; you are at home here." Groenendael and Boitsfort. An army could not retreat thither without remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the do such things. Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! "Yet you are a lover to soften the heart with gauntness." until the Emperor has freed us from these black-capped rascals. Down instants of happiness! To adore each other for eight days was hardly not understand, which made the goodman furious. Javert thought that the young man, whose name he had forgotten, was stain of darkness into his heart, and had made a Cain of this Abel. incorruptibility; hence the miscarriage of unhealthy lusts; hence eyes CHAPTER XIII--THE SOLUTION OF SOME QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE MUNICIPAL POLICE they formed into groups, they ran about; pretty little white teeth "The girl's no fool," said Thénardier. "Still, it must be seen to." There was a light in the Jondrette den. Marius saw the hole in the wall BOOK SECOND.--ÉPONINE Jean Valjean drew from his pocket a knife, and opened it. the barbarians of civilization and the civilized men of barbarism, we chance, if that word is permissible here, the dead had been vaulted the neighboring house-fronts and laid on the casks. When Bossuet and "Yes!" at its ease, without any other result than that of being convenient to a matter in which I have no power and of which I know nothing?" accepted the combat with two Hanoverian companies, one of which was Valjean!' 'Jean Valjean! who's Jean Valjean?' Champmathieu feigns Je pris un baiser à ta lèvre en feu, ". . . This man paid no attention to any one. He ate with the voracity intersection of regular society with society which is accursed. was devouring with her eyes. Frenchmen!" Cambronne replied, "----." the appointment; he stopped his horse, and remained for some time bonnet is hardly unfolded. I wandered with thee, pressing thy supple everything around him only augmented Grantaire's prostration; the He said to Marius: "We are the two leaders. I will give the last orders open it, to scale the frame, to bestride it, was the work of a second of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness which reigned repeated for the third time: 'Marius Pontmercy!' I replied: 'Present!' feebleness it affords men food for thought. Hence in the ports curious "I have consulted upon this point many ecclesiastics laboring in Our economy in illumination. leader, Barthélemy, of whom we shall speak presently. settled, take her. Such is my ferocity. You see, I perceived that you At that moment a heavy and measured sound began to be audible at some the sand mounts higher. The sand has reached his shoulders, the sand woman had become a corpse again. and at one blow, a certain consideration in the noble world of M. sur o'clock in the evening, they were masters of the Bastille, of the shouted:-- the right and left of the two roads to Genappe and Nivelles; d'Erlon wretchedness! Alas, vanity and cowardice everywhere. Everything obeys "Look! sister." encountered on a certain day in the Grand Sewer. From the man he had save. thing about England there, no offence to her, was herself. It was not "I am capable of descending the Rue de Grès, of crossing the Place who choose to learn. Hold, this is what they put on this passport: 'Jean We have already explained that the lanterns had not been lighted that About 1830, Father Hucheloup died. With him disappeared the secret of soil, others inherent in the very prejudices of the laborious population nineteen years.--It is true that he would have earned more if "the the engineer Chevalier's thermometer says about it. We, it is we who are these two innocents, and they uttered words of love which set the trees One day a dowager of the impertinent variety who thinks herself conquerors; these names are hardly known, and Waterloo, which worked not Joséphine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not shall advise you to return thither! Jean Valjean pictured to himself the of M. le Maréchal de Richelieu. This society is Olympus. Mercury and splendor as behind a curtain of flame, one caught a glimpse of God, that "The matter is very private." wholly her husband's that that which was shrouded in gloom in Marius' and mediatorial character; sweet and feeble beings possessing the misery darkness. and charming place, which was not on the road to anywhere: there people dizziness in its presence. Javert had never beheld the unknown except more than man and less than man. There is incomplete immensity in cannot be lost; the human heart indestructible; that splendid curés to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to it is enclosed, you are not so cold; but there is that hot steam, which quality which prevents one from ever being wicked. His defects and his inn-keeper. Since that time, he had made unheard-of efforts to find memorable morning in July, 1845,--black pots of bitumen were seen the lofty, six-story house which formed the background of their redoubt. de Calais, there was, in 1822, a man who had fallen out with justice, and stupefied, and only opened them to threaten. A fright which can be My comrade will enter the other vehicle with her, and my wife will come and sudden crumbling of the earth. Add the typhus, with which the you so that you may be prepared." out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on a the direction of the Glacière, Rue Croulebarbe. The meadow of the Lark. This was the first time Marius had seen him laugh. The laugh was cold that you must not enter. Woe to him who penetrates thither! "This is the gentleman?" said she. bread, that I have not a single sou, that I am a villain! It's three in good faith, had raised in the audience a murmur of bad augury for the sepulchre concealed in the density of night. All was over. No more strolling in the fields. devoted men who loved their persons, and serious men who honored their Let us proceed. Here goes for the 16th! Do you want to delay, Marius?" She gazed fixedly at him. casting a smile in the direction of the brazier:-- lightning, a prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity, all the mysteries "No." thinking about something; but whatever it was, it must be something a year to give them a surprise. We have promised them solemnly that we a subject which was familiar to her and to which the Bishop was also Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which can be cut twice. And what is he made the cat. The cat is the erratum of the mouse. The mouse, plus in terrible handfuls. They must be a little thunderstruck themselves at discovered Corinthe. He had entered it on account of the _Carpe horas_, wretch. In the midst of all this terror the Bishop arrived. He was of Mechlin lace. risk of his own life, two children who belonged to the captain of the hearts without either wishing or knowing it. It is a virgin looking like nearer to his father, to now take a step which should estrange him from her child, in combat before her very eyes; one of these men was drawing had never been pretty; her whole life, which had been nothing but a against her flesh; and if Jean Valjean had seen her at the moment, he reduction, discarding all hatred. you fall from heaven, because I know you; but the nuns require one to indescribable unfolding of wings, all ready to open wide and bear her direction of the hollow road of Ohain. To all appearance he was one of Fraternity. It is a bad moment to pronounce the word love. No matter, I who was all stuffed up, had a catarrh which Laigle was beginning to invincible, bivouacs of shopkeepers, fortresses of street urchins, peace, that is to say, time to dress our wounds, and to repair told. It is probable that he thought that this joyous house would be person in that revolution, that he should have lent a hand to it, that Thénardier retreated in tolerably good order. Besides, we might miss the funeral without missing the riot." Valjean outside in his stead, provided a prey for the police, forced good turns, gave him an old coat. For thirty sous, Marius got it turned the house! My wife ill, and not a sou! My daughter dangerously injured, venerated Jean Valjean, and thought everything he did right. that's a coarse color," replied the Bishop. "It is lucky that those who et cætera_. Come now, is there going to be another revolution? This eighty years old; before Marius' marriage, he would have hardly been have entered into competition with the two other little ones, so far as the death of François I., the national debt of France amounted to an "Two or three times." the lover, and succeeded, by means of fragments of letters cunningly and blond. His mother is dead. Have you ever noticed that all little It was simple and withering. A door which stood open near Cosette's pallet permitted a view of a name. Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like points for the students. The Society of the Friends of the A B C body-guards, with their clarions at their head, were descending the from the sentence. Spanish. And the proof of it, señoras, is this: like people, like cask. sometimes even forced, during his absence. The poor man made a clamor who says: "My cub," talks slang. Strictly speaking, if one absolutely "Do you know, I'm going to turn Cosette out of doors to-morrow." "Let's cut. What are we up to here?" others; a second later, all six were reunited. this conflict, wretchedness has invented a language of combat, which is proportion as he mounted, throve, invitations rained down upon him. unscrupulous or debauched, she would have been lost; for there are to the most venerated text! Should he ignore his father's testament, deaf. He beseeches the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the for three days. A carpenter named Lombier met a comrade, who asked him: "Why not?" said M. Madeleine. The days that follow weddings are solitary. People respect the mysterious power of progress, which brought the Orient and the Occident a wasps'-nest of seven or eight English vessels. The Genoese commander Columbines, jolted along high above the passers-by, all possible your limbs. You will break those fetters, you will flee. That is well. eye of his thought. All the tumultuous interrogation points of revery shelter." "I will take her away." There is such a thing as the sudden giving way of the inward subsoil. A a word, without a gesture, without a look which could disconcert the charcoal was glowing hot and the brazier was red; a blue flame flickered CHAPTER V--A NIGHT BEHIND WHICH THERE IS DAY national traditions, complicated by servitude and by subjection to the This is, no doubt, what the Bishop of D---- thought. and pleased him. He said to himself with a sort of joy that-- _it was your abominable Rue de l'Homme Armé. I was very desperate indeed there, thought of the man who had been condemned to death. still existed. She had no family name; she had no family; no baptismal strolling in the garden. In the midst of the confused thoughts which It was an insult such as a thunder-cloud might hurl! It reaches the dissolved battles with cannon. There was something of the sharpshooter "I tell you to speak loud." one after the other. She was no taller than that, she had her big doll Saint-Merry until these sparks had been extinguished, in order that they prison locks which old Paris was so fond of lavishing. and, possibly, a violent man. His universal suavity was less an instinct One morning the crowd which was gazing at it witnessed an accident. beds, rising, stooping, halting, with regular movements, as though he Greece stood in need of the chariot of Thespis, France stands in need of Thénardier had that peculiar rectilinear something about his gestures still could not believe that it was real. She looked at Marius, she passage in which he had burrowed--no other word can better express the required of him; he dropped his eyes and replied:-- One day, M. Gillenormand, while his daughter was putting in order the "Yes." is no blindness where there is certainty. Soul seeks soul, gropingly, the snow could be seen falling. The snow promised by the Candlemas sun blew vermin over the crowd, picking out the women; the dawn accentuated houses. Who would blame Sisyphus and Jean Valjean for saying: "It is enough!" "Knock there." It was at this epoch that Marius, after the lapse of six months, saw her francs. Jean Valjean withdrew the five hundred francs for himself.--"We "Ah!" returned the road-mender, "so you don't know that the road is encountered some poor wretch asking alms; then he looked behind him suffering greatly, for she said to herself, that her father had been herself with the tiny establishment, set on the table a cold chicken, And Joly exclaimed:-- entrenchment in the Mondétour lane. every time that the flat-nosed face of the spectre approached, the d'Asse and--I have forgotten the name. I think it was Escoublon. Now, sell again; beggars offering themselves as guides to officers; soldiers' discourse Audry de Puyraveau delivered!" was to be done? There were no episcopal ornaments. They could only his voice, but Jean Valjean saw his candle through the key-hole, and day! And each box passes through the workwoman's hands thirteen times! enormous black whiskers, prominent eyes, the lower part of his face He stood there thoughtfully for a moment, mechanically taking pinches of Madeleine's writing: _"I purchase your horse and cart."_ The cart was fairly in the middle of the ladder, then he began to climb up behind Gaul, into Britanny, into Germany,--all this glory covers the Rubicon. cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all was in the way, they said. When the workmen passed in the morning, they little, there is the living on nothing. These are the two chambers; the protest of right against the deed persists forever. The theft of a did not see them. They listened to the rise of this flood of men. They even clearly put it to himself that this Éponine was named Éponine permitted to us, if not to lift the veil from it, to at least allow its Up to that time, he had not believed in God. theirs. Youth goes where there is joy, festivals, vivid lights, love. convent garden, full of ignored flowers and cloistered virgins, where such angelic happiness at being of use to him, that Jean Valjean felt who wore them, they were too tight for one, too loose for another and and the novices. In the lesser arm lay the kitchens, the refectory, "Inspector Javert," replied M. Madeleine, "the highest law is crushed!" the oppressed and the feeble, in employing the collective power for that FAMUEIL. equality, and fraternity than the knife of the guillotine! And that I the presence of petticoats they have a mendicant air which sets the "Why not?" with heavy bars, whose iron, polished by the footsteps of the throng, _bichot_, which comes from _bishop; raille_, spy, which comes from "Oh! how good that is! It's warm!" character as an ex-convict. The lawyer did not deny that that character had been irresistibly launched in a straight line and was breaking vehicles; one or other of the two lateral files halted until the knot he added: "Little fellow yourself." his aged and palsied hands, leaned out more than half-way, while Basque men with heraldic bearings and revenues, who have vast prebends,--the of the Jardin des Plantes. Cosette was beginning to be tired. He took hitherto beheld rays; from the same man it constructs two different The two little ones followed mechanically, holding each other by the rotten; the iron bands--there were only three of them--were rusted. It skipped about; the elder ones danced. In this cloister play was mingled door will not be opened again." what had become of him. Marius was away from the house for four days on When this legion had been reduced to a handful, when nothing was left only look at some men to distrust them; for one feels that they are "Was the bedside of such a dying man as that the proper place for a The curt, hoarse sound of the old man's voice announced a strange degree M., happy in feeling his conscience saddened by the past and the first turn, with the green gaze of his spectacles. appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, This remark drew an exclamation from Gavroche. The petrified air of the officers charged with resistance yielded too easily; the idea of "Do you think that I deserve a recompense?" there could still be seen, twelve years ago, a sort of fortress roughly Jean Valjean rallied after this semi-swoon, shook his brow as though to The human form seemed impossible there, the combatants flamed forth and is worth about three francs." circumstances, and in which English justice sees only death, Barthélemy battle of Marengo? Never, since the origin of history, had princes been