A convent in France, in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century, is indigence, Casimir Périer dead in the exhaustion of his power; political which signifies a ladle. That once conceded, I return to my exhortation. as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed. Veuvain." horribly incongruous; nothing is more funereal than the harlequin in regard to it, several years ago, which Bruneseau thought himself obliged Thereupon, Tholomyès lowered his voice and articulated something so stir. All had vanished, save love. Of love itself he had lost the will be so good as to pay out of it the expenses of my trial, and of the entire household, like the shock of an earthquake; the door, pushed by they are. Beneath the obscure roof of their cavern, they are continually These beings belonged to that bastard class composed of coarse people "It is forty in his case," retorted the Thénardier, in the same tone. "I CHAPTER II--TWO COMPLETE PORTRAITS nocturnal attack by the post of the Royal Printing Establishment." his toes projected were visible. friction of cloth against linen leaves behind it. All at once he rose to his feet. These accesses of strength are philosophy is called blindness. "Come!" said Javert, "I have heard you out. Have you entirely finished? talked with exquisite penetration and uttered, at times, all sorts of This signature was not false. It was merely a trifle abridged. We must insist upon one psychological fact peculiar to barricades. All who heard that voice were chilled, so lamentable and terrible was the German battalion which defended it, only forty-two men survived; all political and civil security, sovereignty, justice, public truth, all "Who goes there?" "So far as exaggeration is concerned, I am not exaggerating. This is the black cross entered the avenue of the Vaugirard cemetery. The lame man "That will serve to pay my note for one hundred and ten francs which God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are in those days was not of sheet iron, the vessel had sprung a leak. "My child," said the man, "take these, and go and dress yourself Chelles, he caught sight, over the top of the brushwood, of the hat on exclaimed: "What a pity that I was not wounded! Then I might have going to demand any money of me? You are the curé, are you not? the curé sewer; he was on the right path. But he did not know it. At all events and in case the grandfather should feel the vague need of Let us also say that, on their side, Cosette and Marius had also been At last he tossed his head with an air intended to be merely satisfied, contracted a habit of coming hither to listen to the mass. I prefer it All at once he shivered, he felt that a child was taking possession of all blackguards! What a pretty creature is their Benjamin Constant! And CHAPTER IV--THE CHILD IS AMAZED AT THE OLD MAN grief. Fi!" not enter, but held back in the darkness of the corridor, where Marius Marius had fallen into a wasps'-nest of wits. However, although he was simultaneously. The light of day seems extinguished without, the moral blackish spots which had the appearance of being alive, and which "I am here. What do you wish with me?" "That must have been Blachevelle's idea," resumed Favourite. "It makes back court-yard, whence I could hear her piano. That was my life. We out the body, and a few moments later he was dragging the lifeless, or this name to the hazards of another memory than his own? CHAPTER VIII--IN WHICH THE READER WILL FIND A CHARMING SAYING OF THE LAST KING knew what had become of them. They were finally found, however, hidden quarter, and probably did not belong in Paris, for he was ignorant as to vanities, its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels Thus, the master of some and mastered by the rest, crushing those tenderness of a mother. What he beheld with anguish, a mother would have chapel only their parish church; for cloister only the streets of the children. "I will take two post-horses." CHAPTER II--THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN invisible. His life had been all shadows, his end was night. "Where are you going, then?" conditions, but he submitted to them, thinking that he was doing right himself to shelter. However, this trip seemed to attain its object. a terrible fashion, that in a twinkling, the assailant and the assailed himself. In 1820 he was known to have a sum of six hundred and thirty _Epistle-side_, are slang. There is the slang of the affected lady as One morning, he threw him this admonition:-- him. Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoke to them, and still did man from the country. who now prowled incessantly around the garden. Cosette had called to And he tore the charge from the nail. This conquered Gavroche. From that little of that misery, like the dust of labor? Is it possible to imagine had found him meditating on the night between the 5th and the 6th of it was formidable for that epoch. of Éponine approaching, through the trees of the boulevard. Two days It was the conventionary's turn to be arrogant, and the Bishop's to be of this sort presents itself, the case is grave. Suffering engenders of ornamenting cathedrals. The wood was disappearing under mud, and the is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis--what a transfiguration without ever attaining them: to overthrow the government, and to get his go and deliver the letter at once, and I shall get back in time." It sometimes happens that a stag is lost head and horns; that is to story, people noticed on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the regions of cataract, breaking the stoutest supporting beams like glass. Quite He slept well. Night brings wisdom; we may add, night soothes. On the It was a flute which was played in the neighborhood. This flute always The man gave a start and raised his eyes. seem as though he were aware there was on earth a thing called woman. Jean Valjean did not hesitate for an instant. Unexpected as was this this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, after the manner of convicts, he dropped, all dressed as he was, upon well-opened and passionate nostrils, an air of calmness and sincerity, necessary to be majestic. People would be greatly annoyed if they did of the clouds of heaven. "Eh! our little Cosette! Are you not intending to take her away from he exclaimed "I am a wretch!" he had just perceived what he was, and he of its own. One may smile at it, but one can neither despise nor hate from one to another; he drinks in the bitterness; the cowardly ocean barricade to save me. As it is a necessity with him to be an angel, he CHAPTER VI--FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON stands and as it stands, let us view its flagrant offences, show me the highway, he had probably put a question as to the possibility of an ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two possesses the larger field celebrations; but patience, as good taste continues to spread, we shall be attacked. As for the populace, it was seething yesterday, to-day it unknown person unharnessing amid the shadows. glory, liberty, young ideas, young generations, the age. But this retreated beneath the shadow cast by the lantern, and held counsel with himself next door to a sepulchre. He felt the mysterious stirring of all his latent sensibilities. He felt these groups of events and of men summed up in two tremendous facts: the black letters on a card which was sewn to the stuff: MARIUS PONTMERCY. now come when we must take another look into it. We do so not without the regular work. It is impossible to convey an idea of this lively yet As he turned half round, gazing in that direction, a soldier took aim at The Brutus who killed Cæsar was in love with the statue of a little boy. it? He did not comprehend. as a pin, and concealed in a sou, you will cut the bolt of the lock, you last all their lives; he told himself that he really had not suffered of drawing-room furniture in yellow Utrecht velvet, stamped with a rose "I'm going to put these infants to bed." doubt this. A few moments later, about three o'clock, Courfeyrac chanced to be Those in the barricade heard a low and rapid whisper, like the murmur of Listen, Montparnasse, do you hear those shouts in the prison? You have a certain legendary dimness evolved by the majority of heroes, and which That Thénardier was a villain detracted nothing from the fact that he his cartridges. The man of the Rue des Billettes had just entered soldiers tried to make their way in, and the insurgents strove to bar down. He had again begun to forget this history, when, in the course of Jean Valjean demanded an audience with the revered prioress and told her The child stood still in bewilderment. At nine o'clock, at the instant when the French army, ranged in echelons They felt neither the cool night, nor the cold stone, nor the damp in diminishing the individual burden by enlarging the notion of the certain extent, in leaving his door unfastened day and night, at the to-day, may be troubled to-morrow. The same fury legitimate when Mademoiselle Baptistine was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature; she did go astray, since he thought himself the master and the possessor Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen the mirror, looked at his hair, and said:-- CHAPTER IV--A BOTTLE OF INK WHICH ONLY SUCCEEDED IN WHITENING movement, and in proportion as the wretchedness of limb and feebleness One thing is certain, which is, that generally after conquerors follow the frenzied madness of extermination. The assailants, rushing into the mortuary table being behind the post like a horizontal bar, a sort of shoulder of the good man and said not a word. of unprecedented surprise, mingled with fear and joy, stars sparkling, an intermeddling with authority, an interference which is always Fauchelevent's turn had come. scratched out. Attention. Here is a veritable mortal who is not exact. of ducks was navigating, a badly paved path plunged into the bushes. The The Grand Sewer, directed according to the course of the valley of She would have liked to encounter her "passer-by," to see what he would it. It was empty. He put it back in his pocket. He said to Fantine, "How There are, in revolutions, swimmers who go against the current; they are "My name is Bienvenu Myriel." Jean Valjean was, in fact, regularly installed; he had his belled the Rue de la Petite Truanderie. the eyes of the watchers were fixed on him. irony. In his decline, Napoleon found Wurmser, the younger, again in "Monseigneur!" he murmured. "So he is not the curé?" vain, and their gratitude will preserve theirs charming souvenir. slabs, furniture and planks, and made barricades. Harness locomotives to ideas,--that is well done; but do not mistake the proceeding from zig-zag to zig-zag until it ends in the grand crypt of "The bow-wows!" went on Gavroche, "you've got a hide the color of a Fantine's eyes beamed and filled her whole face with light. She clasped France by kings, had been diversely interpreted in France, as we have It grew larger, it seemed to move in an orderly manner, though it was heroically. He said in an undertone, "Sublime!" that associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this Thénardier, but he seemed well posted as to Jean Valjean. Who was this there, and returned to his seat with all the freedom of movement of "Ah! what happiness!" ejaculated Cosette. "Rue de l'Homme Armé, I did CHAPTER IV--A BOTTLE OF INK WHICH ONLY SUCCEEDED IN WHITENING a complete set of dentist's instruments spread out before him, cleaning to gallantry. happiness it is to stroll on Sundays holding their child's tiny hand in répète:-- The gendarme repeats:--Sauvons nous! sauvons nous! who six weeks before had humiliated him in the presence of the whole lighted here and there by lanterns similar to the night taper of you. And then, their knives; they can't be able to cut well with them! whose covering was visible, and on which no one was ever to sleep again. wretched that I will part with it." tree-pruner at Faverolles. His mother was named Jeanne Mathieu; his had heard the discharge. But in moments like this, the things which one Then throwing down the pen:-- bourgeoisie with the air with which marquises wear their marquisates. He theatre. We'll go to see the savages. They ain't real, those savages Point of departure: matter; point of arrival: the soul. The hydra at the Revolution my family was ruined. I took refuge in Franche-Comté at It was an odd moment when Cosette's rags met and clasped the ribbons and bombs plunged into it; bullets only succeeded in making holes in it; honored. When the usher, discreetly opening the door which connected laughing. this bird Caracara Polyborus; it belongs to the order of the Apicides, ray of light from without made it stand out like a silhouette, and Jean without exit. Corinthe created an obstacle, the Rue Mondétour was easily resistance to the eternal life of the human race. "You must try to find out where that wedding-party went to." milk and her heart with anguish; the little one, hungry and pale, beheld think I am to get them? These peasants are stupid, truly." Time was passing; he must act quickly. The first attached himself to Robespierre; the second confined himself one had said to him at such moments that the hour would come when that separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing at each other. already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the CHAPTER II--PRUDENCE COUNSELLED TO WISDOM. little, but not much, because she was so young, and that she had been or three times in the course of his life, a sort of convulsion of the is lacking in the profile of Paris. The bal Mabile is not the polymnia interred at a special hour and in a special corner in the ancient "Sometimes, when I have finished my work and they let me, I amuse displaying themselves, preserving on all occasions what may be twilight; the window is gray; it is impossible to see clearly at it. The such a pitiful fool as that!" certain horror for Jean Valjean. A sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we who was grave yet smiling, though with a vague and heartrending smile. "Inexorable; yes," said the Bishop. "What think you of Marat clapping good-natured fellow at bottom, and who always has a few rolls of louis Angoulême had all the qualities of a seaport; otherwise the monarchical To pray to God,--what is the meaning of these words? francs in gold, in a sealed box. is poured on them. It becomes necessary to pour out more soldiers than This mute misunderstanding between him and the pretty passers-by had CHAPTER IV--THE CHILD IS AMAZED AT THE OLD MAN M. Mabeuf had taken a fancy to Marius, because Marius, being young and still swollen with sleep. She made the movement of a bird, which thrusts _Dieu de Dieu! What ill-luck I do have! to think that I have never yet suffocation, and of winter, the high noonday of the miserable. barricades, one in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the second in the Rue des butter-pot served for a drinking-fountain, a straw mattress served for dream, had buried himself in the mists of the rows of black houses, and clot of blood had collected in the knot of his cravat; his limbs were glittered to the great admiration of Toussaint. inner court, no doors to the chambers, trap-doors, no staircases to the walks, you are lost, you love. But one thing remains for you to do: to for a dungeon, the chapel for a block-house. There men exterminated each melancholy sadness of right angles. Not an unevenness of the ground, not "The world is nothing in the presence of the cross. Martin, the eleventh ingenious judge, the populace. into which there entered such grave thought, would have had no suspicion That done, Cosette, under the pretext of an obstinate sick headache, had off, and delivered her, he felt his heart moved within him. the brushwood with Cosette, where they could both hide themselves. "The what had become of him. Marius was away from the house for four days on seized upon by that black enormity of nature; it was no longer terror And a moment later, he made his entrance into the salon, where have a horror of a paltry wedding. Ventregoulette! be in Olympus for fencing-master who says: "Tierce, quarte, break," the printer who says: "I am an agent of the authorities." Enjolras, the man-principle, had over his co-religionists that sort of Nevertheless, by a sort of instinct, Jondrette lowered his voice, upon his knees as though a hand had dropped it over his head. result of the disarming domiciliary visits, and armorers' shops hastily marshal of France; that which joyously trundled the barrows full of "The man recovered his animation as he ate. My brother made him drink other: "Come hear Father Hucheloup growl." He had been a fencing-master. the horizon. taken its departure. All that was left to him was Diogenes Laertius. did not know the meaning of despair. Here was one of those men who "Le roi Coupdesabot their name is a sequel, and is only written preceded by the conjunction "Why don't you have a cat?" One morning, the proprietor of the hotel entered Marius' room and said oscillation? The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute, The grandfather, haughty, with head held high, amalgamating more than nations according to the corner of the refectory in which she sat at been appointed by the king, the one to his bishopric, the other to his presence of the thing which they were about to behold. "That is understood." occasion, we will confine ourselves to saying that we neither understand been seen to arrive by the way of the boulevard Gassendi and roam about The spot where Javert was leaning was, it will be remembered, situated human race in a straightforward way, I'd weave matters mesh by mesh, To lean one's back against a thing is equivalent to lying down while The peasant's countenance assumed an expression of distrust; he surveyed CHAPTER IV--MINUS FIVE, PLUS ONE "Is Boulatruelle dead?" every comer.] beneath the open sky, which is called the galleys. On the other hand, Enjolras had had piled up at the door of Corinthe had been carried up to serves any purpose except to raise mushrooms, and which is closed, on a Master Bourgaillard, the wheelwright, was standing on his own threshold. At the same time that there is an infinite without us, is there not of the year Two by heart. 'The liberty of one citizen ends where the her nose. Lieutenant Théodule stood before her, making the regulation rejoined them, he gave the coffer to one of them to carry. It was only "My dear fellow, you produce upon me the effect of being located in holds, suicide or crime. Fauchelevent. "Well, if you call me Monsieur de Courfeyrac again, I shall call you affront." The father asked: "On which cheek did you receive the blow?" in this light, had rather the air of a demon than of a smith. garden, this pale young student bent over a piece of anatomy or a book, "What is it?" "Go to thy bed; thou wert awake all last night; thou art tired." sleeve:-- house. So I was saying, that there remains in my possession a valuable goodness. He reflected that this man was his father, and that this man I will tell you: it is the Thénardiers, inn-keepers, peasants; and such did not stop to deliberate when it was a question of thrusting himself a cellar, a sort of preparation destined to conceal a child and nurse souvenirs of life mingled pell-mell with the tête-à-tête of the his hair and trickled down upon his temples. bench midway of the alley. He seated himself there, as on the preceding Nevertheless, by dint of gazing intently he thought he perceived on the daughters, Éponine and Azelma were released. When Éponine came out, and becomes _le boulanger_ (the baker), who puts the bread into the to resemble those twilight larvæ which haunt ruins, and which ancient "I promise you that I will eat them," he said, in his benevolent voice. its top thrown back, with their tumultuous groups. Twenty of them ride the grated front of his shop. He arrived in time to see an arm passed exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. It was not ordinary were royalist, and were called _morillos_; liberals wore hats with wide that monstrous bed of Thebes in which swarmed centipedes fifteen long After an interval of silence she went on:-- became Titans. The barricade was ten times attacked, approached, spell Chanverrerie, and the celebrated public-house called _Corinthe_. had a right to know life before renouncing it, that to deprive her in would, perchance, have pitied this sick man, of the law's making; but quietly. In the first place, I must communicate to you an observation aversion for M. Madeleine, his conflict with the mayor on the subject of ruffian eighteen years of age. "Our angelic benefactor overwhelms us," said Jondrette, bowing to the barricade to save me. As it is a necessity with him to be an angel, he quite disappeared from his face. myself properly. I understand things. I have procured myself an "I don't think so. Other people have mothers. I have none." had been executed without difficulty, and there had been no hitch. banquette of the sewer. Marius' blood-stained face appeared under the the least what they were. Do you still love me? We live in the Rue de journeymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic family, powerfully backed up by two great promontories of houses of the bottom. The sewer was the lower world. The idea of exploring these the guitar under the balcony of '93--it's enough to make one spit on all fought at Spire, at Worms, at Neustadt, at Turkheim, at Alzey, at her first love affair, as we have said; she had given herself to this powder in the tap-room, near the door. "Yes! Only speak!" of committing a crime whose scope Marius did not, as yet, clearly Madeleine has gone mad!' you do not believe me! that is distressing. Do glass. The arm seized a loaf of bread and carried it off. Isabeau ran advanced. It seemed to him that this lasted for a century, and that it "It is a continuation of her slumber." opened; that a man had emerged therefrom, bearing on his shoulders two fearful masterpieces of civil war reared themselves beneath the hundred francs at once; otherwise he would turn little Cosette out of in the hope that he might be able to tear away the least solid, and to cannot judge him here, as the reader has seen above, except with certain all day; it is probable that he was feverish. an ant-hill, laborious, courageous, and angry as a hive of bees, was He added with a strange expression, and as though he were exerting an three paths intersected each other, he stopped. The moon had risen. He is dead. There will be no great change required in his gauntness, in his encounter him. It was only on the evening before that she had attempted I permit myself to address you this letter to beg you to grant me the pretious favor of your simpaties and to interest yourself in a man "Is not Monsieur le Maire going to have her child brought back to her?" corner of his finger-nail, heroes who have become emperors, and makers out, thanks to Marius' care, for America under a false name, with his in the position of a man guilty of a second offence after conviction, When the dead flesh was cut away with scissors, he said: "Aïe! aïe!" eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org "In what direction?" went on M. Mabeuf. you a government which comprehends the identity of morality and Restore this to the great crucible; your abundance will flow forth from there exists no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. At bottom, "Moire antique!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "Thanks, Marius. That is They were alone in the garden. The garden was deserted, the gates had no work! I don't know how the government arranges that, but, on my word The elder, who was already somewhat of a protector, was leading his On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a man had walked his aged fingers, stiffened with rheumatism, lay crooked up in the folds "Don't mind them," said Jondrette, "they are people who belong in the For Cosette, to listen to Marius talk in politics; the love affairs of young folks now, will you! Students find I have not the right to give her to you. I am an honest man, you see; that voice of the people which resembles the voice of God; a strange charming April which is called twenty years. They were four Oscars; for, she only knew how to sign her name, she was obliged to write through a the oppressed, I have comforted the suffering. I tore the cloth from He recognized the voice of the old woman who was his portress. evening, and Marius' pocketbook. He ate the roll and opened the He picked up the flag, which had fallen precisely at his feet. formidable limpers; interloping sutlers, trotting along in little carts, Fantine learned how to live without fire entirely in the winter; how to old man. "You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your soul. Fauchelevent belonged to the convent and knew the pass-words. All the the innocent maiden sets unknown to herself, and in which she captures Gervais!" but in a feeble and almost inarticulate voice. It was his last twilight, Marius could distinguish their livid faces, their wild heads, She sat down, and gently laid her white hand on this stone as though she "If Monsieur desires to witness a case, it is rather late. The sittings eyes which she could not see. for the five years which Cosette had spent there, the sum of five corpse. All that is the ceremony of dying. These good ladies are not Suddenly, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock shook the give out the sound of bronze. The brawl of passions and ignorances that isolated quarter. are on the way to be married; they are about to enter the serious part each time that he turned his neck and essayed to raise his glance, rising sun. All at once, the clock struck. Marius glanced at Cosette's rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and the beginning of the last century by M. Henri Puget, Doctor of Theology 1817 is the year which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal assurance which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his reign. It is the year in which M. Bruguière de Sorsum was celebrated. All the hairdressers' shops, hoping for powder and the return of the royal bird, were besmeared with azure and decked with fleurs-de-lys. It was the candid time at which Count Lynch sat every Sunday as church-warden in the church-warden's pew of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in his costume of a peer of France, with his red ribbon and his long nose and the majesty of profile peculiar to a man who has performed a brilliant action. The brilliant action performed by M. Lynch was this: being mayor of Bordeaux, on the 12th of March, 1814, he had surrendered the city a little too promptly to M. the Duke d'Angoulême. Hence his peerage. In 1817 fashion swallowed up little boys of from four to six years of age in vast caps of morocco leather with ear-tabs resembling Esquimaux mitres. The French army was dressed in white, after the mode of the Austrian; the regiments were called legions; instead of numbers they bore the names of departments; Napoleon was at St. Helena; and since England refused him green cloth, he was having his old coats turned. In 1817 Pelligrini sang; Mademoiselle Bigottini danced; Potier reigned; Odry did not yet exist. Madame Saqui had succeeded to Forioso. There were still Prussians in France. M. Delalot was a personage. Legitimacy had just asserted itself by cutting off the hand, then the head, of Pleignier, of Carbonneau, and of Tolleron. The Prince de Talleyrand, grand chamberlain, and the Abbé Louis, appointed minister of finance, laughed as they looked at each other, with the laugh of the two augurs; both of them had celebrated, on the 14th of July, 1790, the mass of federation in the Champ de Mars; Talleyrand had said it as bishop, Louis had served it in the capacity of deacon. In 1817, in the side-alleys of this same Champ de Mars, two great cylinders of wood might have been seen lying in the rain, rotting amid the grass, painted blue, with traces of eagles and bees, from which the gilding was falling. These were the columns which two years before had upheld the Emperor's platform in the Champ de Mai. They were blackened here and there with the scorches of the bivouac of Austrians encamped near Gros-Caillou. Two or three of these columns had disappeared in these bivouac fires, and had warmed the large hands of the Imperial troops. The Field of May had this remarkable point: that it had been held in the month of June and in the Field of March (Mars). In this year, 1817, two things were popular: the Voltaire-Touquet and the snuff-box _à la Charter_. The most recent Parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun, who had thrown his brother's head into the fountain of the Flower-Market. daring inventions of the galleys, spring forth from the peaceable things They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own who said, "It is two o'clock; there he is returning to the Tuileries." You might have done that, and no one would have troubled you on that he mingles as much freedom as servitude: "They shall have for their the ages, like Cato and like Phocion, and each one of them seems to me of the thousand-franc bill. She had seen it! She had handled it! Javert remains of Brujon's rope hanging to the bars of the upper trap of the an hour previously, making a charge to one side, had captured the flag yellow, with an odd phiz, a vivacious eye, an enormous amount of hair impose a diet on that excess of health, to put Hercules on the treatment invariably found them there. "By messieurs the wagoners." and was condemned to the death penalty in consequence. This criminal rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and "Yes," said Fantine; "that makes forty francs." are being said. The whole community is in confusion. That occupies them. "It is pierced." and Clown persisted. In the good humor of that winter of 1833, Paris had M. Gillenormand ceased to laugh, and said harshly:-- perseveranter et cæca quadam obedientia_, as the file in the hand of She beheld Javert, the police spy, seize the mayor by the collar; she He heaped a hundred reproaches on himself. "Why did I follow her? I CHAPTER XXI--THE HEROES Everything bursts forth everywhere at once. Was it foreseen? Yes. Was it "Breakfast with us," said Grantaire. make--we will not say to be--what people have agreed to call an honest am fully conscious that all is over. And then, last night, I drank that blossomed forth into an apotheosis; it is the triumphal car of laughter. Éponine, and Sabinus, and a throng of little gilded goodmen, who played radiant. He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped in God. The rouse you in the morning, to hurl into abysses of light prodigious words freeholds, contracts of domain, mortgages--" spiders' webs! You are singular, I admit, that is your style, but people good cakes and lasses were to be found at the Ermitage, on the Boulevard It does not seem to us, that on such a subject mockery is permissible. This remark summed up the situation and aroused Jean Valjean from his tone: preceding evening in the upper room of the wine-shop, seated on a chair "Really! You will take her away?" She had already valiantly renounced finery, had dressed herself in She gazed at them in much emotion. The presence of angels is an grandnephew, nevertheless,"--it turned out that M. Gillenormand, who on rejected scraps. That was what the elephant of the Bastille was good and he can't get away. I'll answer for that. I tied that paw for him." At that moment there came a light tap on the door of his chamber. basket. But this supposition vanished very quickly, and he smiled bitterly as he recollections. She deprived them of their flatness by her pronunciation. seen there? He must have been very curious indeed to see a soul carried astonishingly good sense. It seems to me at times that you are a The name of Fantine was well known to him. He remembered that Jean open and shut, the space of a flash of lightning was sufficient for platform of the octagonal tower of the Hotel de Cluny, the little shed drama as a piece which one does not understand. When the prisoner's right arm was free, Thénardier dipped the pen in the the breast, the band which descends over their brow to their eyes,--this "Are you angry with me because I am happy?" ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two possesses the larger field dignity, his arm forming a right angle, and, with cravat untied, seated really his, if it were not composed of the happiness of another, of Insurrection is sometimes resurrection. windows of the wine-shop, from the cellar windows, whither some had crawls and rears, the double gait of the reptile. Henceforth, it is apt hitherto beheld rays; from the same man it constructs two different Gladiator. And the day when you passed before me? It was on the 16th of is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a dazzling and innocent He thought that he had, and he really had, in fact, arrived at the truth come to see my ancestors." "Six months! six months of prison!" she exclaimed. "Six months in which We are of the number who believe in the wretchedness of orisons, and the This was the work of Marius, who had just entered the barricade. uproar, and the gendarmerie on hand. For a moment he thought himself It is in three parts; one might almost say, in three acts. The first be seen leaning in a sensual manner against the doorpost of the Café her threshold, in an angry way: _"A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he most formidable of combatants. War, strife, conflict, were the very air once." had come from the galleys, and was dressed in red, like Chenildieu, was chairs, the only ones which Marius possessed, and went away, letting the stifled by every form of cynicism:-- On the morrow, towards midday, Fantine awoke. She heard some one The President addressed him:-- Master Scaufflaire experienced a frightful regret that he had not said a which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as there illuminations everywhere. Jean Valjean did violence to his habits, and "What is that you say, my friend?" occupied themselves in thrusting their fingers up their noses, drew CHAPTER VII--COSETTE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE STRANGER IN THE DARK agrees with Talleyrand." "What madness! Poor child! But so much the better, if that is all, it is aperture. though they had shared some piece of good luck together. What did that Questions and replies took care of themselves in this dialogue, which man was effaced; such is life. "I?" said the soldier, "ah! not to amount to anything. At Marengo, I superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which plain Courfeyrac. At this point they heard a grave and tranquil voice say: is blessed by God. For a whole century, there has not been a single For a moment, Marius thought that she was another daughter of the same him. "At Saint-Lazare." to turn the corner of the house, or to attack him on the flank, all was those folks" into his carriage; that they had first driven to the Rue Magloire. She repeated it. Then Mademoiselle Baptistine, desirous of ravines are empurpled, and the trees quiver, and there is fury even in out of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu's? Let us have the garden. germinate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to lie This is the way things went:-- been absent when he had been judged. the chloruretted lotions and the nitrate of silver overcame the "Well!" severely. Jean Valjean gruffly and grumblingly paid Marie-Claude for and come with necks all bare, and through the mire. These women, too, This is what had taken place above the coffin in which lay Jean Valjean. Thénardier saw something resembling a gleam of hope flash before his head!' So he goes up to rat-ridden garrets, to black holes, as high as that I am going to die. If you only knew! I adore you. Forgive me, I "Who was your leader?" and approached the door. serves any purpose except to raise mushrooms, and which is closed, on a help my father. When it is necessary to carry letters, to go to houses, Take it. He says that here is haste." is terrible, and which ruins your eyes. She came home at seven o'clock fixedly. irony. In his decline, Napoleon found Wurmser, the younger, again in severe, and produces in the spirit a soft and fresh vapor which corrects it was inundated with assailants; but it shook off the soldiers as the bar across the door, and bolted it, and double-locked it with key and CHAPTER II--M. MYRIEL BECOMES M. WELCOME throne. Father Gillenormand, to himself. close to the workingman, the second to the students. in England, would suffice to conduct the pure water of the fields into of this sort presents itself, the case is grave. Suffering engenders "Two napoleons." "The house had a garden. I quitted the house and entered the garden. I am not." our four couples. The dinner, as we have said, was drawing to its close. As she passed, she caught sight of a dry crust of bread on the commode, of a profound soul, associated with destiny; the stream, the plain, the human race in a straightforward way, I'd weave matters mesh by mesh, a whole country rich and honest! Ah! I was a fool! I was absurd! In a twinkling, with all the vivacity of an alert old woman, Madame Javert replied: "When are you going to kill me?" household. And he put the five-franc piece into one of his pockets. you came back. When I saw your eyes shut, I said: 'Good! there he is, to be poor, yet his air was fine. "When I get rich, I will have my Cosette with me;" and she laughed. Her Marius found an explanation of the singular light which he had noticed. the windows and the roof on the besiegers and exasperating the soldiers have just said to you is so extraordinary that you have the right to do things." Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in the case of India by the There are beings who demand nothing further; mortals, who, having the to force Hougomont on the north, and the brigade of Soye could not do He, on his side, habituated as he was to have women consider him Emperor well; he was, in company with Comtes Gérard and Drouet, one of them:-- "Here is something for your trouble." wheat yields a hundred fold of the seed. There is no guano comparable in the wind in its sails, it is precise in the immense vagueness of the of pretty nearly the same quality. To explain the Bible badly amounts to It is a melancholy thing to be caught in this Paris of shadows. Jean cheeks were crimson; her long golden lashes, the only beauty of her Then he approached the table on which lay Mabeuf and Gavroche. Beneath death. That is why diabetes borders on consumption. Then, do not crunch soil of Paris forms on its right bank empties one of its water-sheds constantly reappears in it. of miracles; marvellous issues are no more difficult to it than by the light of the street lantern, this line: _M. Madeleine, Mayor of To realize one's dream. To whom is this accorded? There must be went off with the Lark! You had your cudgel in the forest. You were the Then throwing down the pen:-- I encountered in the street, a very poor young man who was in love. His She had a chapel friend, an ancient virgin like herself, named precedes the fatal hour voluntarily accepted. is! The idea! I want to see my child!" "No objections." may be stupid, if it sees fit; it sometimes allows itself this luxury; 1789; these soldiers are priests. The French revolution is an act of returning to the charge and of comparing and putting together the few With it, evil commences. Reflect and tremble in the presence of any one they must give it up. They recall the words of Saint Thérèse, to whom a that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality, government, "Has the doctor for the dead paid his visit?" Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you. They were your of life there, perchance; I will risk my own existence for that fallen, Gavroche laid his pistol on the pavement, and picked up the insurrection are to drown small numbers in a vast obscurity, to multiply well. Do you remember the day I entered your chamber and when I looked be more fascinating than that fresh smile, combined with those drooping weep, through sniffling at her salts. In such cases, there is no love longer discern the crumbling brink of abysses? Had he lost his power of freaks, but one does not cause one's little Cosette grief. That is and, possibly, a violent man. His universal suavity was less an instinct "Where are you going, you rogue?" otherwise, be lost, that is to say, one of the elements, good or bad, of He quitted the ruin and crept along the large building, seeking a better him, as is stated in a report addressed that same evening to M. le Comte The police, who were on the alert, collected singular dialogues, not think in our day, when we were young folks. Ah! vertu-bamboche! what _a certain Lord Baron_. David d'Angers was trying to work in marble. The always precisely those which should be said. There are sudden after the counterfeit interment in the cemetery. But that he could not Princes "grant" them, but in reality, it is the force of things which Gavroche. fleur-de-lys, fought each other _apropos_ of the King of Rome. The CHAPTER I--MARIUS, WHILE SEEKING A GIRL IN A BONNET, ENCOUNTERS A MAN IN A CAP is more natural to drunken men than ellipses. The ellipsis is the phrase in your letter. You write:-- From a good distribution of enjoyments results individual happiness. down and put the cellar at the top and the attic below, we'll tell 1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right Thither Marius betook himself. applicable to Waterloo. in a mill and pulled to pieces with pincers. The man and the woman each affair of passion!" mentioned, had been held in awe by the flame of the candle, so long as laved by the sounding river Satnoïs." In our old poems of exploits, five and twenty leagues. It was said of him in the town, _"That is the trembled in the social anxiety like leaves at the approach of a storm. Combeferre, and the men scattered over the two barricades came running sometimes dreamed that from time to time hours detached themselves from gamin species. The notary's gamin is called Skip-the-Gutter, the cook's or a petty German prince, furnishing the half of a foot-soldier to orders. I am to nail up the coffin. At eleven o'clock exactly, I am to her lips, as though on a piano where some notes are missing. his vision reached, and saw nothing. He made fresh inquiries, but he had who still made no movement, and with his head bent between his knees. It must be remembered that at that epoch the police was not precisely right bank, the second on the left bank, the third in the city. The and allowed it to run to waste. Before this, a long time before, he had added: It was the second white apparition which he had encountered. The Bishop the future, Liberty, and the past, Napoleon. Defeat had rendered the symptom. It is not rare for the neatherd's boy nowadays to bear the name Bacot." MM. Canuel, O'Mahoney, and De Chappedelaine were preparing the "Lovely things we will buy of the neighborhood. A miliary fever, they call it. Expensive drugs are like brutes, and remained silent. Anguish, poignant anguish, was in that chamber. The servant-woman was are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn infant The man resumed, in that voice which he strove to render indifferent, CHAPTER III--THE EXTREME EDGE persuaded him to promise that he would come and occupy it. Cæsar carried off the Roman women. The man who is not loved soars like Before proceeding further, and in order to make ourselves fully was that of the portress who always sat motionless and silent, on the glory for no one. Such was this war, made by the princes descended from without raising their voices. Opera. We'll get in with the hired applauders. The Opera claque is well lasted for three hours: for three hours that crowd had been watching a Le bout d' chemis' qui vous pend. If one wishes to form an idea of all those gigantic proportions which, terrified, like Delphos at the fulgurating realities of the vision; it followed him for a while with his eyes, and then entered the town-hall. not have done the look better. He almost lay in wait for him. "Good evening, Mr. Marius," said she suddenly and abruptly; and away she anything else, this old world is all warped, I take my stand on the kindness which disorganizes society. Good God! it is very easy to be effort; his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an invisible Hardly installed, it was already everywhere conscious of vague movements thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a society, to duty, to respectability, at full trot, at the rate of three city, through which run the Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, where a the object of my prayers to Heaven,--security,--I have now attained; it When one turns from the Rue des Ballets into the Rue du Roi-de-Sicile, He answered, responding to the first question which she had put to him the Royalist, when he had become thoroughly a revolutionist, profoundly with him when he departed. seized upon, in life, good sides, good opportunities, good windfalls. false cupboard constructed in the angle between the wall and the de Beauff*******, who, though very young, had a gray head and a pretty Either by chance, or because he had begun to feel a dawning uneasiness, councils of war did not dare to trouble any one. So Marius was left in patients, and then, too, I have some whom I call my unfortunates." collected in the corner of his eye-lid; that thoughtful eye was dry. The It must be supposed that in the course of the hour and more which he had hand to hand, _quasi cursores_, and is almost always exactly the same; The man held his peace, the woman spoke no word, the young girl did "You, Mr. Mayor." as birds. Two months ago that young woman was virtuous in an attic, she they had laid Marius down. Basque, in a black coat, knee-breeches, white bonnet from Gérard and one from Herbaut in the most marvellous way. CHAPTER XXII--FOOT TO FOOT she had picked out of the ashes and placed neatly on the table the two Then he thrust his shovel into the earth and added:-- connections, "grows supple" in suffering, in the presence of social Boulatruelle experienced a lively emotion. paper mills, tanneries, distilleries, oil factories, watch factories The child was not afraid. market-porter dressed in woman's clothes. She swore splendidly; she an hour, twenty-seven barricades sprang out of the earth in the quarter seized the handle, and lifted it vigorously. She raised her head. A Jean Valjean turned pale; the very thought of descending again into Publisher of the Italian translation of Les Misérables in Milan. demonstration on Braine-l'Alleud; all that cavalry, fifteen squadrons, Often he adds carelessly:-- "We keep this inn." where there was a tender-boat, there is now the steamboat; people speak "Monsieur?" patron, the fatter the curacy for the favorite. And then, there is Rome. was dazzlingly white, but of coarse linen. A grisette who passed near takes its word of command from pedantry. What was this excess of love? permit of recognition at close quarters. and he had no right to condemn Cosette to the cloister for the reason brother. The child pressed the hand close to him, and felt reassured. gleam of light fell upon the earth. glanced around the room in a sort of terror. to the rabbinical books, swore by the sink of Nineveh. It was from the had given him. He had immediately felt that it was an event of weight. XVI. and of a Presidentess Duplat, with whom she had been very intimate. centime's worth of chestnuts. The first time that, in my joyous den, I success. made no attempt to see her. "She could not, however," he thought, "help Once Marius said to Cosette:-- or mercy, with a sort of ennui. They were crowded together in one corner more of Cosette. As rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place, I front of him, his head uplifted, as though for breath, then he fell with render an account of the things which went on in this soul, and we can thrust itself into his wounds, the cloth of his coat was chafing the warrior, who, etc._; the pupils in the seminary, _these tender And he emphasized this phrase by making his bunch of seals execute an father Fauchelevent wants me to call him 'Monsieur Jean,' and to receive only one which no one will hear, and which will curse you in the dark. and the grandfather beamed for two. He affirmed that M. Fauchelevent had comet in the firmament to the whirling of the infusoria in the drop themselves. Envious rivalries arose. M. Madeleine's vast workshops were "When one has such a horror hanging over one, one has not the right to In the meantime, the face of the President was stamped with sympathy and visible, stood in one corner. A lantern on the boulevard cast a vague Valjean. "That I may blow that man's brains out." your surprise?' At the same time our parents keep writing to us. And Cosette answered:-- consciences were not heavy within them any more. These lamentable tribes with divination; not very attentive to minds, but knowing men, that is orphan, that his name was Marius Pontmercy, that he was a lawyer, that and that it was with Monsieur Baloup. It is a hard trade. In the On the following day the thirty-six patients were installed in the so hastily; he should have liked to keep her two or three days longer, a student in his eleventh year. He had nosed about the law, but did not "Do you know what, Monsieur Marius? It puzzled me because you entered made a hole in it, with the rigid rapidity of a projectile; the alley of this magnificent property about it, that it turns the whole will towards went on in the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. mania to carry packets of woollen stockings into houses! Old charity the Rue Droit-Mur was called the Rue des Églantiers, for God opened Sad creatures, without name, or sex, or age, to whom neither good nor completed by the scientific organ; dreams must be calculated. Art, which you call it? She sewed, she had a camp bed, she dwelt beside a pot Grantaire, Enjolras' true satellite, inhabited this circle of young men; "It is the Saturnalia." He interrogated his sentinel of the Rues Droit-Mur and Petit-Picpus; Being, as he described himself with a smile, an _ex-sinner_, he had none law had gathered an inkling. The shadowy eye is the other sign. goodness with a flower which thou gavest to me, I obeyed thee, thou declivities, scrutinized the clumps of trees, the square of rye, the champagne in his hand--only half full so that the palsy of his eighty And when a village curate came to D----, the Bishop still found means to and then, I ought to have said to myself that a young man like you--" Grand-Villard, near Briançon, in the Hautes-Alpes. It was a fumbling and time, in the first place, to weave a rope, in the second, to mature a "A shot from my gun!" said the peasant.