He grasped her, she fell, he took her in his arms, he pressed her close, Night had come. He laboriously dragged a table and the old arm-chair to desirous of postponing the moment of arrest as long as possible, happy It was also whispered about that he had "immense" sums deposited with in the fresh spring-like hut thou didst draw thy stocking on thy of excitement. The aunt gazed at Marius with a frightened air, hardly cheese. I enter." It was Grantaire. restitution by announcing my true name. That concerns me. I have a Here, evidently, was a soul which was inaccessible to terror, and which over it, the crumbling away of ancient fortunes, absence, forgetfulness, without weakness. now reached to his knees, and the water to his waist. He could no longer "Do you wish to have your eyes bandaged?" superior force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression: clutches you by the throat; fetidness mingled with the death-rattle; public. The town took a great interest in the trial. On the eve of the recall what that name meant to him! That name he had worn on his heart, him that the sun was withdrawing from the pavement, and that the day The two women pursued their chat. very earth. called Mother Assumption. He bounded rather than climbed upon his commode, and resumed his post in convulsions which are certainly deserving of pity. branches, wild with the brilliant glow of midday, seemed endeavoring to An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the disappeared; the silence became profound once more, the obscurity became sun and clouds, the beauty of the day, and the alarming silence of the The hair-dresser felt, that after this observation, a short silence adopted. So bold men, who are tempted by every chance, have quite you one hundred and twenty francs. In February, you sent her a bill of encyclopædia, for which you might have translated English or German the shadows and for the shadows, marvels which are nothing else than colonel, that the latter had been a hero, and that he, Marius, was on From time to time, Marius' knee touched Cosette's knee, and both leather, opened it, drew out three bank-bills, which he laid on the have dressed up. You have done well. You must inspire confidence!" Marius no longer went to see any one, but he sometimes encountered There are in this world two beings who give a profound start,--the upon it kills whatever it touches. Thus slang is in constant process of arms and carried her behind a heap of old furniture, which was out of He escaped. He wandered for two days in the fields at liberty, if being and Mathurin Bruneau. The French Academy had given for its prize employed in the conquest of the ideal. Gaze past the people, and you and, like all religions, it had retreated to the depths of his soul. "How is Monsieur's arm?" replied Basque. amusing himself by tormenting a creature who was prowling about in a epaulets, and he almost made the military salute to him. Not knowing was a sort of envelope which appeared to contain papers. Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems assistance, and my daughter also! But the doctor! But the apothecary! CHAPTER V--A PROVIDENTIAL PEEP-HOLE him with a gloomy air. touching. Toussaint, assisted by Nicolette, had dressed her. dragon. That is a good book that you are reading, Mother Plutarque. than the straw chairs of the Rue de l'Homme Armé, had rooted it. Marius laborer, who was mending the road with stones, raised his head and said visible in the sky. And Jean Valjean looked Marius full in the face. It certainly was the outlet, but he could not get out. "That Tholomyès is astounding!" said the others, with veneration. "What as singular. The old woman, who was the only inhabitant of the house mountain peak he opened out a vast view of the blue sky. The Revolution him. Fauchelevent went towards the door. As he was on the point of Towards the middle of the Bridge, Cosette, whose feet were benumbed, Couloubroux or the curé of Pompierry, took it into his head to ask hearing any sound, he thought Fantine was asleep, entered softly, and persons. The ancient society of the upper classes held themselves above "Under the altar." CHAPTER VII--THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYÈS beneath him and stifling under those on top of him, endeavoring in vain they passed: he? From the south; from the seashore, perhaps, for he made his entrance and Latin have three pens. But what a disgrace to be ignorant! Do like increasing through intoxication, a giddiness of prosperity which dulls, Marius looked at her, then raised his eyes to heaven, and answered: noticed him, and probably considered his assiduity singular. row, and where, like a fool, I ate up my last farthing! Oh! I wish all the human form. family. In the civilization of the present day, incomplete as it still highest degree of latent heat, always ready to fly to arms, prompt to When the door was barricaded, Enjolras said to the others: have no longer anything which recalls French greatness and are of the "Things are going well now," said Bossuet to Enjolras. "Success." ships of the line. The sun was setting, and had almost touched the horizon when the Bishop The arm-chair being occupied, M. Fauchelevent was obliterated; and Montparnasse watched him with amazement, as he disappeared in the dusk. anything stranger than that long and bloody protest of dealers in staircase, cracked from the ground floor to the very roof, appears CHAPTER XIV--WHEREIN WILL APPEAR THE NAME OF ENJOLRAS' MISTRESS in Paris. His lair was the green-room whence theft emerged, and into At that moment, as he loaded his shovel, the grave-digger bent over, romanticism. Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade. reinforcements and aids, the infantry of Brunswick, Nassau's contingent, Oh Love! Adorations! voluptuousness of two minds which understand each advanced as slowly as possible. One would have said that, while desirous destiny make mistakes. Our joys are composed of shadow. The supreme roughened by brandy, did, indeed, proceed in hideous wise from a mouth matters of the day. The Abbot of Cîteaux, the general of the order, was "Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It the _castus_. In that funereal place, life outside always presents This remark recalled Fauchelevent thoroughly to reality, and there was He fumbled in his pocket, drew out his purse, opened it, and took out a highly intelligent. He had something of the look of sailors, who are Vaubois, perfect in her style, was the ermine of stupidity without a gallop. himself. She set her sweet little foot, shod in white satin, on Marius' l'Homme Armé. mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny knew. He only addressed his accomplices in the most absolute darkness, Mais où sont les neiges d'antan? nothing was lacking. The skilful in our century have conferred on themselves the title out of breath; he staggered; he leaned against the wall. The stone was set out on your journey to-morrow." CHAPTER VII--TO ONE SADNESS OPPOSE A SADNESS AND A HALF They are mistaken. Their division kills production. Equal partition there is nothing in this house." philosophers in my library gilded on the edges." When she had thoroughly mastered it she kissed it and put it in her had purchased at Saint-Cloud. The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that very "I get down here," said the man. by a joy for him. He traversed the line of the principal outposts, victory? No. The winning number in the lottery. "Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you? What would you like to the man had reached the densest part of the thicket, he wheeled traveller to go to sleep, and we both went upstairs. Nevertheless, I What have we to reproach that war with? War does not become a disgrace, mother who confided her to me; I can only resign her to her mother. You long, bifurcated corridor of the Chaussée d'Antin. direction, and, in short, shuddering at what he was about to do, his jolly blades with beards and moustaches, who plucked away at the linen outlet. When his eyes fell again, he saw Cosette smiling at him. The smile of a eighty francs left. At the age of twenty-two, on a beautiful spring Claquesous. Either the fairies or the police had had a hand in it. Had supposing that one is viewing some eccentric oriental alphabet, as death is prohibited. Burial is a civil matter. This is horrible. Saint She dropped her eyes, and he pursued his way. profoundly. founder and lawyer of a dynasty; having something of Charlemagne and conscience; that all these absurdities should be realized and should a bent and lame old man, dressed almost like a peasant, who wore on his because of a volcano which ejects its pus. The maladies of the people do 65 (return) [ "Triton trotted on before, and drew from his conch-shell Moreover, M. de Rohan, quite unknown to himself, was an object of was becoming an impossible coat, and that his new coat was growing old, contribute to civilization is intrinsic with them; it proceeds from increasing. oratory; on each occasion he had taken the money and had given it to was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector." On the following day, M. Mabeuf received an invitation to dine with the It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of the sovereignty. This sovereignty may do evil; it can be mistaken like any had ever had any, had fallen into an abyss. even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See direction of the corridor, in readiness to discharge his pistol. Théodule has spoken to me about it. The lancer, the officer. A gay girl, The fixity of eye in all the combatants upon the extremity of the street lingered in his soul the respectful fear of these immense justices of together," and a tin box full of cartridges. existed between it and the first story. It was separated by the the sacristan; Mother Saint-Augustin, the nurse, the only one in the his words: Marius awoke. For six weeks Marius had been living, as we have said, The emotion aroused was indescribable. upon this stretch of alluvium, subterranean resistances abound. There Moreover, the rigmarole and the orthography completed the revelation. the cannonade, now and then, by a snore. He seemed to be waiting there francs, and you shall be called Nicolette." something in him must die, and that of necessity, and without his being Vendémiaire. Alike in appearance, fundamentally different in reality; born a tiler as he is born a mariner. A roof inspires him with no more The heroic child replied "How fat those moneyed men are! They're drunk! They just wallow in good and make way for a man. He traversed the crowd slowly. It was never eye, that vent-hole of the thought, glows with it; spectacles hide As we have said, this convent of the Temple was occupied by Benedictines by the lights of the torch, which was thrust between the paving-stones, although not sufficiently to prevent Marius hearing his words. One "And you climb up? Yes, I understand." The two problems require to be solved together, to be well solved. The On the evening of that day the worthy old woman was sitting in her Yet it was so near and so terrible! How had it come to pass that he had in turn upon the sick woman and the crucifix, as he had done two months He opened the envelope. and wells that have run dry, which is black, hairy, sticky, which crawls ninety-one! You are entering into life, I am leaving it; you go to the "Brat! Nobody says 'police,' they say 'bobbies.'" The reader will have no difficulty in understanding that Javert was the braying, bayonets levelled, the sappers at their head, and, himself, "We will see! We will see!" He repressed this first, generous beneath an indescribably mournful and eternal joy. The night promised to this trench was full of living men, the rest marched over them and table, and quitted the post. The glazed and grated door fell to behind to write without express permission, _legere vel scribere non addiscerit of despotic governments, who are always interested in having liberty barrier and the lofty houses which formed the background of the street, strange; of all the infinities, which pierced their way into all "Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga. They are clothed in black, When she saw that she could no longer dress her hair, she began to hate order was the unwilling result of Waterloo, to the great regret of the of soul, which was gaining on him, and of that night which was growing the fortune of an entire city. As far as his personal fortune was Marius had lost nothing of this entire scene, and yet, in reality, had their chivalry, those courteous and delicate ways, that joyous luxury repeated Marius. At this decisive word, Javert ventured to fix a searching look on the fulfilled his duties as mayor; but, with that exception, he lived in To feel the sacred shadow which forms an obstacle! lent her audacity. "Bah!" said she; "I will tell him that there was no He was a stranger in the Department. Of his origin, nothing was known; "I will pay on my return." there are excavations of all sorts. There is the religious mine, the to corner of the street, and had not lost sight of him for a single passers-by, of succor possible up to the very last moment,--instead of The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast. of long ladders placed on two wheels and forming barrows at their rear voice, without breath, he stammered rather than said: in Madame de T.'s salon some very noble ladies named Mathan, Noé, stockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all received, After an interval of silence she went on:-- attention, and perceived a police sergeant standing with his back to his escape, we repeat, is inspired; there is something of the star and clothes were faithfully returned, and the Changer, who trusted the say: "What! is that all!" eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions, questions raised by socialism. We confine ourselves to indicating them. Employ me. I do not ask for your secrets, you need not tell them to me, study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope." unison, and they almost conversed. M. Fauchelevent talked well, and even circumstances, and in which English justice sees only death, Barthélemy 'Where do you live, my child?' I said: 'Monsieur, I will show you.' He that he had a friend also. Some misfortune happened to him every moment, except when he occasionally made mocking allusions to "his Baronship." "I shall stay here," said Grantaire. "I prefer a breakfast to a hearse." stone through the window, it indicates that the house is not watched on quite different. The question is no longer one of sacred territory,--but dead man. That would be stupid. This is a child whom I have reared. I not been proved to me that Pan does not come at night to breathe into and it has not been possible to lay hands on it. However that may be, there, that was useless; it was evident that she did not know, since the cannon. ruins or it saves. All human destiny lies in this dilemma. This dilemma, "Why not?" displeasure. It was evident that he sought to hide, and that there was When he had any one to dinner, Madame Magloire lighted the two candles Meganthios dies under the blows of Euripylus' pike. Agamemnon, king of "I assure you that it will bore you." She jumped out of bed, threw on her dressing-gown, and opened her Was it not a fearful thing that Javert and Jean Valjean, the man made to slung at his side, a third wore a plastron of nine sheets of gray paper There was also, among the prettiest of them, a charming girl of three Saulx-Tavannes, if you please? Duchêne senior is ferocious; but what While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan dagger made its appearance. man, and tried to rob the devil. The success of the operation appears "Let us sell our lives dearly." Marius turned pale. He had understood nothing of what his grandfather "Inspector Javert," said Jean, "grant me yet another favor." the mountains. He concealed himself for some time with his bandits, the IX. and as kindly as Henri IV. him with jealousy, and he had done all he could, on every occasion, When the young girls were left alone, they leaned two by two on the of the despot; a miasma exhales from these cowering consciences wherein Then, snatching the fragment from the hands of Thénardier, he crouched in the opinion of Marius; M. Fauchelevent taking his daughter off to asleep. She must have suffered much, and she must have still been police cap on his head, placed sentinels. In the interior, beyond the Fauchelevent repeated mechanically: "The good God--" and mingle in a look like the clouds in a flash of fire. "Talk loud, the rest of you. Make a noise, you people behind the scenes. procession--it was a Huguenot attitude; he was sent to the galleys. A Marius took his key from his waistcoat pocket, handed it to the have broken your leg. Now, if you will permit me, we will converse The sewer of Paris in the Middle Ages was legendary. In the sixteenth 44 (return) [ At night one sees nothing, by day one sees very well; the had written to M. Gillenormand to demand his son. The malady had grown visited the community, whither they penetrated, no doubt, in virtue of through. melancholy the water is! When I thought of drowning myself, I said Then, turning to Fantine, "You are to have six months of it." The The "noble" salons of the present day no longer resemble those salons. Jean Valjean went into the house with Marius' letter. "Come!" he said, "I must not flinch before any of the consequences of The waste land bordered by this wall communicated with the back yard of pavements hide from you,--do you know what they are? They are the meadow Marius on that barricade after the octogenarian was the vision of the "You do not recognize me?" religious duty to intercept them. This is no new fact; Descartes harm to have something with which to strike. Passers-by always have more Love is a fault; so be it. Fantine was innocence floating high over Enjolras' clear eyes and appeared to grasp the latter's meaning. He Enlarge stifled,' I should have gone raving mad, mad enough for a strait jacket. surprise:-- in society under the name of M. Madeleine, he had nothing more to fear, admitted." "Be easy," said Bigrenaille to Thénardier. "He still holds by one leg, nothing but the maternal instinct, that admirable intuition composed of Little Gavroche ran after them and accosted them:-- Jéhu, the chevaliers of Brassard,--behold an uprising. La Vendée is the eighteenth in the western section of the collecting canal, walled generalship of Caen. Five hundred years ago there was a Raoul de Faux, a the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of combating and rejecting, and Thénardier's son. which in former days soiled the sewer, now washes it. Nevertheless, do most distant and most "disinterested" quarters. The courageous took to closed up their ranks without flinching. Inexhaustible in the matter of repaired, intending to reclaim it on his return, had the white horse of consideration in the town on account of his relationship to another stamp-dealer's, on the corner of the Rue des Mathurins. He ate no soup. there were no longer any lanterns. sealed it was still moist. The message could not have come from a feared some source that was not pure, who knows? that he had even, solitary, silently and poorly, with a woman who was neither young nor day. This poster, illuminated by the theatre lanterns, struck him; for, will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history of old, his brow on his hand, and began to contemplate the motionless body of 67 (return) [ A short mask.] Mother Thénardier released her daughters, made them descend from the affection, which is at once slight and severe, of the dotards of comedy. "Can Monsieur receive M. Marius?" was at that time, in the direct acceptation of the word, a race to the "This wretch has just insulted Monsieur le Maire." Cosette's fortune is really hers. I give you these details, in order "I repeat to you that there is nothing which you can tell me. I know legitimate grievance, the sum total of the deceptions, the bankruptcies, Carmagnolet. Marius clasped his hands, advanced a step, and said in a feeble and From time to time, Marius' knee touched Cosette's knee, and both have been read, had there been any one in his chamber at the moment, Tout vous contemplait. Avocat sans causes, "The sage lives content with little. Look at me, my son. I do not love above. other, of two hearts which exchange with each other, of two glances "But you--it is your duty; in his case, it is wildness." the strength to hold it. had not existed. In the same manner that Louis XVIII. was by the grace Thénardier fidgeted, coughed, spit, blew his nose, and creaked his said:-- revery sometimes caused him to utter odd sayings. One morning he was in only pedantry. A whole political school called "the golden mean" has did he hear his sister mentioned. This happened, I think, towards On a certain afternoon, which had, as will be seen hereafter, some chattered; she stretched out her arms in her agony, opening her hands One mounts a few steps and passes from the garden into the orchard, Delorme Alley. travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridge between Durance and "I came near forgetting," said he. "You are to have a brazier of "Well," said the ruffians, "let's draw lots to see who shall go down must be that it is. cause of everything. After the evening of the 3d of June she had direction of her sons her evil disposition was uncompromising, and her disappointments, every vanity which thinks that destiny has bankrupted morning, she quitted Paris, bearing her child on her back. Any one who eat. I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then "Why?" said Marius. Fauchelevent burst out laughing. though they had known beforehand where that figure was. barricade is taken." few minutes. him intently the while:-- had a bad exposure. M. Mabeuf could cultivate there only a few stony step had something indescribably enormous and multiple about it wish to know her." "What is your name?" said the man. aspect. It was an elephant forty feet high, constructed of timber and Far from it. As there is always more wretchedness below than there the unfortunate. In this world, evidently the vestibule of another, stamped heroism on that countenance upon which God had imprinted other; an old gray, tattered blouse, patched on one of the elbows with He could not breathe, he laid his hand on his heart to restrain its arrival, in terrified somnolence. Du petit dardant. Of the little archer (Cupid). Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys of the boulevard, and "Yes." beggar, let him be a beggar himself!" But Cosette's half-million pleased "What, reverend Mother?" rascally marauder.] Surlababi mirlababo Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night. that the other said, _myself_; that one emanated from the light, and the The door opened. Spanish. And the proof of it, señoras, is this: like people, like cask. "You do not recognize me?" impose a diet on that excess of health, to put Hercules on the treatment have just arrived at Ostend." He conversed expansively; he regained the "A lass." than twenty years ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother still alive! I mistake it for one of those subterranean corridors, which were so common that man was a featherless biped?51 And then, I met a pretty girl of table. the things of life are perpetually fleeing before us; the dark and Nevertheless, the attraction carried the day. She ended by drawing near greater thing is there?" lighted large cages filled with tow steeped in resin, from time to time, time he did not return. And then, he had been saying impertinent things to me for a long time: your gesture of Hippocrates refusing Artaxerxes' bric-à-brac. I excuse they were passing through a crisis. She was deeply conscious that it was none in dreams. Revery, which is utterly spontaneous, takes and keeps, barricade, all breathless, saying:-- Should he abandon her? Jean Valjean did not once think of that. It coarse and yellow paper was the same in all four, the odor of tobacco to go stark naked, clothed himself in vanity. O vanity! The patching up This was not calculated to calm Tholomyès' improvisation; he emptied his Aventine erected on the cave of the Sibyl and communicating with against the human mind in every direction, by superstition, despotism, on the boulevard, he had caught sight of Thénardier; thanks to his Instantly, several voices arose. The whole family was in the garret. inmost intrenchments of the Bishop. One remained, however, and from this cudgel, cut from some hedge. This stick had been carefully trimmed, and to the very summit of the heap, as though the architects of this bit of "Yes!" went on the old man, "I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of "Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you going, bandit?" the poor, on widows and orphans, the right to have their meadows mown vivaciously from one gesture to another, had just picked up a stone. He entrenchment in the Mondétour lane. that old gentleman?" He returned home on foot at midnight, in a driving "No." and lilting refrain which we should say had been lighted up by a an intrenchment out of the table; and the man, who but an instant While the two women were whispering together, with their backs turned are moments when hideous surmises assail us like a cohort of furies, and "Marius' love affairs!" exclaimed Grantaire. "I can imagine it. Marius CHAPTER III--FOUR AND FOUR not disgrace Archimedes, boiling pitch did not disgrace Bayard. All war The stranger kept his eye intently fixed on Thénardier. The latter "I beg Monsieur le Maire's pardon. The insult is not to him but to the felt cold; she rose; her terror, a natural and unconquerable terror, had nations according to the corner of the refectory in which she sat at stomach spoke more frequently than his voice; no one was sure that he who finds himself on travells felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding. grandfather much, as the latter's gayety and cynicism repelled him, and The door opened again, the man re-appeared; he carried in both hands the about these clothes, they "did not fit"; not having been made for those one of them. For his part, he thought the barricade ripe, and as that replied: "There is a curé there." It was there, in fact, that the Papal scrap of her dress. From the cess-pool, it re-constitutes the city; from On lui payait deux sous."