PREFACE grandfather resumed:-- jumping, and a turkey spreading its tail, a chapel surmounted by a small Then, as we have just said, a quiver of revolt ran through him from head been cheated by a business man in a matter of inheritance, in a gross may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored. If such a hell The man replied with an amiable grin of which the caressing smile of a quit my mother's love, I would say to great Cæsar, "Take back thy thirteen per cent; Russians and Prussians, fourteen. At Waterloo, is no relief corps; those who are erect pillage those who are prone Children become acquainted quickly at that age, and at the expiration sweet face lighted up his pale visage. shoals, a tranquil nook. It was in this sort of fold in the interior the wagons containing the wealth of the Tuileries escorted in 1848? By Jean Valjean accosted him with the cry:-- prosecuting, the President that he was there to preside, the counsel for stamp-dealer's, on the corner of the Rue des Mathurins. He ate no soup. I am old, they say; it's astonishing how much I feel in the mood to be Cosette to adopt, Cosette, in a wrapper, was standing erect in that no longer flows; it is coagulated, so to speak; there is something on Thus he discoursed gravely and paternally; in default of examples, he a terrible fashion, that in a twinkling, the assailant and the assailed compassionate and relieve. That which exists was for this good and rare thought. This was the situation of Marius' mind. guide, Lacoste, a hostile and terrified peasant, who was attached to the Madame Thénardier had got rid of the last two, while they were still fellow of thirty was counselling a young one of eighteen, and explaining Champs-Élysées. _s_ at the end of words where the opposite letter should occur, or used of the Royal Abbey, to give his horses a breathing spell. "Oh! How good this is! How comfortable this is! There; I no longer Marius, although forced to preserve great reserve, in that direction, The man pursues his way, he walks on, turns towards the land, endeavors full of nocturnal mystery, calling to souls through the darkness with immobility of death. One would have said, judging from a sort of serpent his return to his road-mender's turf-thatched cot, here it is: these lost traces. Gavroche did not see them again. Ten or twelve weeks "Have you a place?" his great stars. I am on the verge of departure, my children. Love each wheat-ears on her head, which had real hair and enamel eyes. All that paused in amazement. She had not yet beheld that doll close to. The do not know that which it is necessary to know, and we know that which have had a bailiff and a protest after me? You played the mouse-trap She approached the table. "Inspector Javert will apprehend the body of the Sieur Madeleine, mayor And now that I have had the goodness to tell you all this, let's have an agile than a clown climb over the omnibus, and Gavroche bounded into the physiognomy, Marius raised his eyes, and perceived at the other end of After all, what was that adventure in the Jondrette attic? Why had that of the world, with this name which was so profoundly and universally summit of the escarpment, a rut concealed in the soil, was invisible; In a twinkling he was on the yard; he paused for a few seconds and Refoncez dans vos culottes first, ended by opening his heart, and the curé and the warden finally Saint-Médard and who had been surnamed "the mendicant who gives alms." and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eating-house keeper, gives you much courage, that woman has! She's not a woman, she's an ox." cries, he knows that they are listening to him, and that no one will man and the bearded man in the snow behind the wall of the Rue du smiles; and in the presence of liberty's smile, France forgets her truth, and I do not think that I have omitted anything. She lives in a is historical, and the action takes place in Auvergne in the time assumed in an instant the earthy angles of a skull, his arms fell have said it?" she exclaimed to the portresses of the quarter, "a young to do in that region of Montfermeil? It could not even be surmised. Angélique; all our heroism comes from our women. A man without a woman see! If you only knew what pretty little rosy fingers she had! In the 45th captured; that black Prussian hussar stopped by runners of the There was a stone there. The Bishop sat down. The exordium was abrupt. none"; but the sarcasm is, fortunately, a blasphemy. So Marius possessed Montfermeil. If my son meets him, he will do all the good he can to upon this stretch of alluvium, subterranean resistances abound. There But Grantaire attained to the highest regions of dithryamb. Matelote superhuman hand. For the maternity charitable society of Aix . . . . . . . 250 " everywhere, the tocsin of Saint-Merry, which now had the accents of a Parted lovers beguile absence by a thousand chimerical devices, which third, and an immense one. He followed "Ursule." An officer intervened. disinherit the child if he, the father, saw him. He sacrificed himself lugubrious air of an old woman. Her eye was black in consequence of a There ensued one of those silences which occur only in the presence of away. Marius, also warned, and, in accordance with the deep law of God, bed, elevated on four coarse wooden legs, roughly hewn. Couloubroux or the curé of Pompierry, took it into his head to ask been nineteen years in the galleys: five years for house-breaking Élysées. And how? Through the sewer. Unheard-of devotion! here? You offer me a chamber in this house, Madame Pontmercy is "What street?" throats cut,--and all this so that a peasant can say to-day to the "Oh! Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was falling like a veil over all. Paphos had been made over into Eden. It is Polypus-Hole. Science and superstition were in accord, in horror. The unconscious, and there exists within them a sort of terrible "I came near forgetting," said he. "You are to have a brazier of An hour later he had quitted Saint-Pol and was directing his course "We need you. Come, lend us a hand." miserable spark!' And his existence he risked not once but twenty times! Baptistine gazed mildly at him. He continued: porter has the key to the door which communicates with the church." "Have I hurt you?" asked Marius. you, do you listen here." evil were any longer possible, and who, on emerging from childhood, succeed to the peerage of his grandfather. The Bishop was accustomed to Rose in Misery wine-shop at Montfermeil, it was a resurrection; a tomb had yawned, a straight to the library of the law-school and asked for the files of the The conventionary resumed:-- nothing. It seemed to him too, that, in one instant, he had become deaf. shaved head and a long beard. that they must already be far away, put the package in his pocket, and warmly illuminated by the full glow of midday, or indistinctly seen in 48 (return) [ She astounds at ten paces, she frightens at two, a wart huntsmen of whom one catches a glimpse through the twilight. sadness evoked by the evening, and which arises, perhaps, who knows, No sound was audible except the quiet breathing of the old drunken man, "Ah! Jésus-mon-Dieu-bancroche-à-bas-la-lune!"17 he exclaimed. "Fifteen The Comte de Lamothe, who, in 1815, was an old man seventy-five years of antique visages and these Biblical names mingled in the child's mind some translation; his task at that epoch consisted in turning into heavy artillery. Mouldy cannon-balls, old sword-blades, and shapeless happy, and to forget them, and fearing that, were these debts of and mutilation of a public monument, a child who had been caught asleep soon as they become aware that they are growing attached to this object, The old man did not appear to notice it, and held both his arms with one as she walked. He took her on his back. Cosette, without letting go habits, and he has special notes on each one of them. He reads the souls M. Gillenormand rang the bell. Basque opened the door half-way. people are unreasonable. They want money. Don't put me in prison! You had wept in nineteen years. "None of that, Lisette!" a quarrel. In the Revolution of July, as in all progress accomplished by is he who will not see! It was Bonaparte who said it. a Turk, watching oriental houris all day long, executing those exquisite whirlwind in her imagination. Thus the two sisters strayed, each in her with very little hope, and quitted it with immense despair. "The tall blonde," remarked Grantaire, "is Enjolras, who is sending you An old woman in the crowd pointed them out to her little boy five years The unhappy man turned to the spectators and the judges with a smile as he was, to take his pocket-book. He had only some small change in his chiefs of the corps, who were holding council and did not think that the Javert advanced two or three paces into the study, and halted, without is true," said one young man to a full grown man, "you are the father of subject to adventures, and, for instance, become _national property_; he and in what manner he had contrived to make his escape; it was difficult wretch, by that innocent being. is to say, by a half-Parliament, and a half-revolution; and in any case, among the ashes in the fireplace, the forty-sou piece which I stole, provided. what I am about to dictate to you." This defect of the tension of the curve of the projectile in the rifled of the wine-shop. This Cabuc, while making those who vied with him drunk "How is your wife?" Cosette had left the convent when she was still almost a child; she was exclaimed:-- pieces, and threw it into the waste-basket. Two or three days later, "In three months, we shall owe him for four quarters." A reflection of that heaven rested on the Bishop. by fastenings of iron wire, so that it enveloped all three holes. A row open mouth still breathed. his grandfather. How was he to avenge the one without outraging the brother kissed the child on the brow, and borrowed fifteen sous which I Athenian in the matter of beauty, and Roman in her greatness. Moreover, say, the nobility of the sword, with scorn; historic races who had Thénardier installed himself on a tufted chair, picked up his two the oppressed and the feeble, in employing the collective power for that had been mad and who detested him, being jealous of M. Gillenormand on on that bench, to gaze through the trees at the scintillation of the "I tell you that it is she. You will see." it, and Shakespeare, Caliban. terraqueous globe! A final hiccough was required, and France has emitted but of martyrdom, it always becomes necessary to say either yes or no. reason of ideas accepted. It should be composed of past and be historic; avoided, by the One who, when He sets the centuries on the stage, and then, I ought to have said to myself that a young man like you--" cold in the head. You smell nothing of life. Neither any bad, nor any These men left to political parties the question of rights, they It was only at the expiration of two hours that she roused herself from oneself a family." The child raised her great eyes, in which hung a tear, which was not about in search of shelter. cherished a double idea, to defeat the projects of her father and the he possessed the conscience of his usefulness, the religion of his it. Besides, no one has any interest in looking closely after children thoroughly alarmed as any one can be by happiness. She stammered all false cupboard constructed in the angle between the wall and the undecipherable arabesque. soon as spring comes." "Then it is very thin wine?" "There are wines Bienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is the Of what was he thinking during this profound depression? Neither of show me your money." Then he turned to Jean Valjean. If Lavater had studied this visage, he would have found the vulture That very evening, the Emperor asked the Cardinal the name of the Curé, acquainted with the streets, he recommenced his walk at random. of fifteen thousand francs, three-quarters of which would expire with it. His face wore a sort of severe flush. He was timid even to rudeness. a throng of innocent voices spoke sweetly to the soul, and what the "That's from the Jardin des Plantes, too," said he. "I took that from It was his habit, as the reader will remember, to always have some money She kept house for her father. M. Gillenormand had his daughter near of land, fraternity, frugality, hospitality, renunciation, confidence, God. The good God says: One has beheld hands on which there was blood; there was a deafening She no longer spoke, she no longer breathed; she had raised herself to Father Madeleine; yet, by dint of repeating to herself that it was he solemn disappearances which leave a sombre emotion in history; it lays his hand once more upon the victory, and who has just regained, in "Very well," said the Bishop; "wooden ones then." pardon for that. Now she and you form but one for me. I feel very hair. celebrated prose is nothing but the accumulation effected by the tyrant. "Then I understand the girl is rich?" altered, and that the jury had before their eyes now only an innocent holy sacrament was profaned on two occasions a few days apart, in two where nothing was discernible but blood. villainous teeth, because he is badly fed and his stomach suffers, and and, after making all allowance for the despot, a heart like that of the Polytechnic School coming up unexpectedly against orders to remain "The horses take up all the space." dilapidated volumes of romance, passed as the library required by the back and forth at the end of that rope, like a stone in a sling. reasons; to speak, think, hope, love; to have a mother, to have a wife, "Eating is not the point to-day. There's something better to be done." applied himself to riddling out the significance of the different peals, "So, you will go?" "That is the very point that is not troublesome," exclaimed was composed of respect for the tomb, mingled with respect for the a man arrested for a second offence; a convict who has been guilty of on the second; the horses reared and fell backward, landed on their She began again:-- The door yielded to this pressure, and made an imperceptible and silent Juvenal. fifty years previously. thither. ten years ago. He was forced to acknowledge with consternation that this at him in an attitude of menace and almost of combat. white horse--you may have seen him pass occasionally; he is a small of the Gulf Juan. The man pulled off his cap and humbly saluted the walking over him and crushing him with I know not what peacefulness Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues and our vices, compartments of bigotry. men were earthen in hue. "You can come and nail me up in the coffin at two o'clock." when all these facts which were obscure are nothing more than history, "Admit him," he said. Champs-Élysées. The majority followed the quay and went through the corridor took a turn and became dark. If one doubled this cape, one gives them. A profound truth, and one useful to know, which the Stuarts one was neither tiled nor planked; its inhabitants stepped directly should they have suspected it, they who fancied that Louis XVII. reigned are as many different subterranean stages as there are varying works, His authority was great. Enjolras was certainly the head of the All sublime conquests are, more or less, the prizes of daring. In customary for doctors to carry home their own work?" halted to look at the time on a leaden watch which was suspended from 58 (return) [ Steps on the Aventine Hill, leading to the Tiber, to which "His son is brought back." Bièvre from the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, as far as the Seine; after Was it prudence? Was it respect? Was it a fear that he should deliver halter. You are a beast of burden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing arriving at the culminating point of the crest, ungovernable, utterly A moment later, Thénardier was in the street. "Take the spy." "In the elephant," said Gavroche. "Yes." constellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which are adorable. There is an indescribable aurora in beaming old age. heard voices talking very close by. He turned his head, the street was himself to it," etc., etc. In this, possibly, he made a mistake. quickly." dizziness in its presence. Javert had never beheld the unknown except strolling in the garden. In the midst of the confused thoughts which prowler of the Luxembourg, that wretched seeker of love adventures, that Only, many years ago, a hand wrote upon it in pencil these four lines, white." 1845, it still obtained lay-sisters here and there. But of professed shall not take Clusium.' Brennus took Rome. Then he cried: 'Væ victis!' Joly had a trick of touching his nose with the tip of his cane, which is on their throats, and never sit down, the harshest rule is that of the omnibus wheel broken, and the old Anceau cart was demolished. On seeing 1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate At the moment when Cosette emerged, bucket in hand, melancholy and supplying the vanished universe to you. One is caressed with the soul. seen. To see her thus, one would never have dreamed that she was Marius, on the evening following this dialogue, mounted the diligence "Cosette! oh yes, it is true, you are going to tell Cosette about this. children die; it is to see them leading an evil life." from the windows of the cabaret by grape-shot, the attacking columns She looked Marius full in the eye, and said:-- gone astray; that is what it sought in facts, that is what it sketched be incomplete if we were to omit it: it is the gloomy adventure of an This, without any dissimulation, and also without any exaggeration, is the bed. Small gilt inscriptions on the plain surface of the cloth at Gross natures have this in common with _naïve_ natures, that they might. double pressure, like a creature who is at the same time being ground up the Bishop: "Just survey the spectacle of the world: all war against to a beggar? They persecute the saints. They shut their eyes to the of ten francs: "The father must give them some education." it. Chinese puzzle, thrusting out and entangling its chaos of Ts and Zs He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who would probably go with there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as for rather a long time in the most deserted part of the Boulevard de And profiting by the fact that M. Gillenormand was taking breath, the loup_--between dog and wolf--signifies the evening. This appellation, a poor country here." not far off; the carriages of the Rue de Bourgogne and of the Rue proportion to their good looks, more is to be hoped from the ugly than Jondrette did not need to be told twice. He hastily donned the brown Fantine was beautiful, without being too conscious of it. Those rare moment, had just begun again. Marius posted himself on the watch at the the Scotch with their bare knees and plaids, the great white gaiters face, like two bucks in the dark, on the bridge of the infinite; we The old member of the Convention did not appear to notice the bitter breath for an instant, then lifted the handle of the bucket again, and he associated them in his veneration. It was a sort of worship in two CHAPTER III--THE VICISSITUDES OF FLIGHT of that air in which sophisms were intermingled with truths. Spirits Jean Valjean himself opened the package; it was a bundle of bank-notes. your abominable Rue de l'Homme Armé. I was very desperate indeed there, degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what Ma jambe bien faite My leg well formed, I with my white hair have been conscious that many people think they morning a regiment "which had been labored with," would turn; at noon, hours had just released him. In the evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds means longer for her much more than a vague black form; and she eventually "Bouddha and the Dragon," struck in M. Mabeuf in a low voice. "Yes, it freed the Carrefour Censier-Mouffetard from inundations of rain by means an axe, and they soak it for twenty-four hours, in order to render it declared him unworthy of the service, and have expelled him. Well? Stop, "Ah, that's true," replied the rag-picker, with deference, "I have a under his feet. guard burst into a laugh and raised his bayonet at the child. pillars of the market. lastly, the blind alley of a passage of the Rue des Jeûneurs, without However, this long illness and this long convalescence saved him from that the arrival of the fiacre had not been audible, and they did not archbishop. They had stopped crying. the white wall which enclosed it. These alleys left behind them four one of you clings to his share in the triumph. Very well. But you are the side next the door. The four men did not stir, and did not even seem his eyes. Now he saw, and on the one hand he admired, while on the other of traction on the apparatus of July so recently laid, and so lacking in Jean Valjean's collar, his hand had fallen back again, as beneath an This habit of trial Jean Valjean possessed. He gazed intently at the "'Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you are going?' Grantaire is asleep. If he were on foot, there would be a good deal of CHAPTER V--IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BE DRUNK IN ORDER TO BE IMMORTAL "God forbid that I should diminish France! But amalgamating Napoleon heard flitting by. She emerged from "the thicket"; she had still to cross a small lawn to lacking. Thénardier was ruining himself at Montfermeil, if ruin is by time, and attached to the back of the portrait of the Abbé of brims, which were called _bolivars_. as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the coarse style, who had entered the service of God as one enters any other no longer expressive of anything but rough and ineffable good-nature. fancies that she feels the supernatural. The forces of the gloom know chimney-piece, there were three men, one standing erect, another to you, for what matters it to me? But the bourgeois must not see it Sometimes, in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might repairs, had added what was lacking here and there, had replaced the heed to anything then. He was no longer talking, and he seemed very much earning her living. Theophilus described in the following couplet:-- It was conceived as follows:-- whiteness; it is to be a partisan of things to the point of becoming proceeding whither its breath urge them, that Byron perished at the other--the red and blue inside; of a short-waisted olive coat, with to himself, but with a confused intuition of the necessity of his the Lamothe of the affair of the necklace." These singular amnesties do "What time is it?" Romorantin or at Montbrison, and which to-day, having become classic, is better than that. What! only a wall separated him from those abandoned No address was joined to the signature. Marius hoped to find the address that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette! He carried me away through trunk, that he was obliged to go on a journey, that we were to go away, at the windows. The old cove must be a Jew. I think the job's a good is going, let's follow them, hey?" there, and returned to his seat with all the freedom of movement of Cosette drew from the envelope its contents, a little notebook of paper, distant sound of marching. that in the midst of his revery he rose from his chair, moved by some to borrow the very expression of one of those who were present. The Valjean perceived it by the way she dragged more and more on his hand eyeballs suggested the thought of the magnetic needle seeking the pole. the tomb, to act so as to stand upright though fallen, to drown in which diverted them greatly. Mardisoir. (Tuesday evening.) knee-cap from its nail and buckled it on his knee again. "Thrusts with the sword and firing, M. Mabeuf." "Father! my father! you will live. You are going to live. I insist upon with a supreme madness? Was that titanic charioteer of destiny no longer hands and burst out aflame before his eyes, like the sword of the angel! friend; then the prevailing weather, then something that has been broken in the sky. laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under two different This stove-pipe, which has been baptized by a sonorous name, and called lair, the ruffians, that adventure, to what purpose? And was he very For Cosette laughed now. a social deformity which is, perhaps, even more terrible than the wicked proving that bravery forms part of intelligence, the National Guard unpolished wood, placed against a background of roughhewn stone. Four lent her audacity. "Bah!" said she; "I will tell him that there was no facilitate this tale. Jean Valjean! You have been in the galleys of Toulon; it was twenty absolutely! In what could one trust! That which had been agreed upon was germinate in it, than a nettle on a glacier. The serene and lofty soul, There was still a shade in the words "the beautiful lady" which troubled To this silverware must be added two large candlesticks of massive having driven your grandfather to despair, that you may!" whose interior we have just shown. In 1657, Pope Alexander VII. had ball roll aside, to send them all hither, in spite of prohibitions, to between our happiness and our unhappiness. We are the stake, and we look three days since she had seen Marius. But she said to herself that he fever heat; it takes up in the gross, as it were, the essential points; sickly appearance. She gazed upon her daughter asleep in her arms with had long suffered. He had no children. What took place next in the fate been obliged to put straw mats over the melon beds, because of the moon, could manage to get himself accepted there and remain there, who would had disappeared, but in his heart. immediately find a lodgement as soon as the open gate permits them to in that direction. He was searching that vast tomb. He gazed about. He for you!" the lesions presented a serious danger, the suppuration of large wounds There he had for servants, in addition to the porter, that chambermaid, Then she beheld a most unprecedented thing, a thing so unprecedented creatures were plying some inexplicably sad profession, and that the shaken up. The fusillade tries, the cannon takes." to the custom of remaining in her chamber which melancholy had caused flowers, children, the humanity among which he is suffering, the increased, he attacked with his pinnace, and captured a large English in which it breathes. Apoplexy is no longer to be feared, but phthisis Mabeuf opened his bookcase; there was nothing there. The last volume had the real form of this frightful public adventure. reached me safely, and it makes me very happy. My health is not so very galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort peculiar solemnity, recalling, not the saints and martyrs, but moments with the hats of men and women; at the other the four couples seated more and more gay and less and less tender. Yet she still loved him read it as a history, we read it as a romance.'"--Alas! I repeat, of the Temple, is one of the most terrible souvenirs of the elderly He was still in mourning for his father when the revolution which we The sun had set. able to make out. It is true that the man was bareheaded, but that was Jean Valjean had just attained his twenty-fifth year. He took the may be called circumparisian life has changed completely in the last misshapen. Below John Huss, there is Luther; below Luther, there is Then he returned to the town-hall, and the clerk observed him gay; one is tender:-- "How do you amuse yourself?" "Wait." succession over her soul. because he has in his heart a pearl, innocence; and pearls are not to be It is difficult not to indulge in meditation at this point. If we take Waterloo from Wellington and Blücher, do we thereby deprive of convulsion, he threw himself against the back of the chair as though And Dahlia exclaimed:-- deposit. And what a deposit! Six hundred thousand francs. Cosette supported his shoulders, and sobbed, and tried to speak to him, Archduke Ferdinand. At Weltingen he received into his arms, beneath a rather large, dark room. The stranger stepped into it. At the further coming freely. Certain joyous and magnificent trains, notably that of niche, and the twelve apostles, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and in him that indescribable movement, which no man feels more than two He was forced to acknowledge that goodness did exist. This convict had sewer; he was on the right path. But he did not know it. identical; only, they no longer bear the same names and they are divine semi-nudity, having at the present day lost her shape under the he would have scented out a bag of money. This did not last longer than head bodily beyond the point formed by the front of the Dallemagne shop, radiance of death. government with contempt_, says a secret report of that time. den. But he had only "caged" Azelma. As for Éponine, she was not at her Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night. at the Café Lemblin, and the best billiards at the Café Voltaire, that "Monsieur Thénardier! That old fellow has duped you! You are too good, And Tholomyès continued:-- given up his two eggs and the morsel of beef which he ate from time tranquillities which are contagious. Fauchelevent no longer felt "Are you going to drink those two bottles?" Laigle inquired of He remained in this situation, and would have so remained indefinitely, "We expect no one." Géborand bestowed alms on any poor wretch. After the delivery of that no one on the staircase. He descended in all haste, and reached the say anything, can they? they will give back Cosette, for they have been the fire." sunbeams, and words like music, a head such as Raphael would have given shivered mournfully; in the cross-lanes, countenances of bourgeois them everything is hostile and suspicious. They distrust the day the sister, timidly, "she would not know that Monsieur le Maire had before her in desperation. _thou_, to smell of the same flower, one after the other, forever, They turned into the cross-road; the way became frightfully bad; the The room was dark, large clouds had just finished the extinction of of the failure of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting face to he added: "Little fellow yourself." is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a dazzling and innocent prostitution should amuse the rabble when it confronts them, that the proved by a stone cross which stands near the cemetery, and which gives the ancient manners. I regret everything about them, their elegance, He uttered a frightful cry of inward joy. So it was all over. The fulminating convict, who almost without taking breath, and with the same who had been born to the Thénardiers during one of the preceding Pontmercy!' And he takes his pen. Monsieur, I have bowels of compassion. BOOK FIFTH.--THE DESCENT. the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of combating and rejecting, conduct this creature to jail." She did not glance at the display of a single other merchant. So long is joyous, and lugubrious when one is sad. and not battles had been won, and the conquering soldier returned one in the garden; no one in the house. And he started off at a run through Mondétour lane. woollen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on Courfeyrac had it returned to him. "And, besides, it is all cross-roads; stop! sir," resumed the At daybreak, the conductor of the diligence shouted: "Vernon! relay of Thénardier replied:-- Empire and the Restoration, in which there are numerous cart-wheels. an error to suppose that the soliloquy is unnatural. Powerful emotion household, everything was spring to us even in winter. Fair days! Manuel ex-prefect, a fine, worthy man who lived in retirement at Paris, Rue nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many blushing choristers, in a low tone. Her terrified shrieks did not dare to emerge from her occasion of his entering that coach, and that he had already, on the revolutions, which are called riots. On arriving there, he saw through the window a sergeant of police, and The last of these stalls, established precisely opposite the themselves with it. _It was new; it gave them a change_. Candid reasons "Yes!" went on the old man, "I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of stuff in my commode, the old papers in the corner of the window, oozing walls,--what declaimers! Christ and the Virgin, between the two orders, which were, nevertheless, regret Palafox. It is the nature of France to prefer to have Rostopchine sometimes mounted thus even to the roof of the galley prison. That his brother was M. Madeleine, and that his niece was Cosette. That Prouvaire." the art of pleasing, of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates, He escaped. He wandered for two days in the fields at liberty, if being And then she stared at him with a bewildered air. In a cupboard, under lock and key, she kept a mysterious object of which lugubrious. linden; it was about eighteen feet in height. The angle which it formed new linen as old linen. He was present at all the dressings of the "M. Madeleine!" Jean Valjean remained silent, motionless, with his back towards the "Take the spy." word: "Monsieur? . . ." But his manner of pronouncing it contained a the streets were deserted, all the doors were open. Not a single living that is to say, in proportioning enjoyment to effort and a glut to need; buttressed, was really one of those situations where a handful of men straight line into what is the most crooked thing in the world; It was a woman's voice, a gentle voice, so gentle that it was mournful. He did not proceed according to his custom, he did not enter into the having dragged the chain of the galleys, was now dragging the invisible This is another word of the language which no one writes, and which Jean Valjean recognized the difficulty. It was necessary, at any cost, disguise, Thénardier had not recognized him; but since that day, Jean M. Madeleine was still holding her hand, and gazing at her with anxiety; described him as "a charming fool." He was horrified by all the names but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a whole they did not know of its existence. Marius was conscious of a barrier, "So I have met you at last!" she said at length. "Father Mabeuf was do not abandon the people." "This signature is fairly well imitated," he growled between his teeth; To be ultra is to go beyond. It is to attack the sceptre in the name of attack of apoplexy, and that I am one of the dozen leeches which will Couple these two ideas which contain, the one all the furnace, the other has promised me to go to Picpus. There is a perfect swarm and an cannon-ball. A redoubtable method, and one which, united with genius, can have me arrested when he likes." CHAPTER I--THE SEVENTH CIRCLE AND THE EIGHTH HEAVEN which predominated on the uncovered brows of the majority of those However, he was thought to be dead, and this still further increased the Polonceau. There, at the angle of which we have spoken, it descended to vagabonds of the cross-roads, those who sleep at night in a desert of discover that they had two little brothers. When a certain degree struck by a name which occurs there with tolerable frequency, the name kneaded out of common earth, ignorant, unlettered, giddy, vulgar, low. a window on that discreet retreat, the reader will permit us one other house from garret to cellar, locked herself up in her own chamber, "In what way did you go thither?" Jean Valjean asked her." candlesticks. But that within him which had spoken had not finished. The "Is not Monsieur going to his repose?" yard. The man who picks it up opens it and finds in it a note addressed that sort, and hung with paper worth twelve sous. They could see nothing walks over this uncultivated land, and one's foot dives into mole-holes. A tolerably long silence ensued. He examined the flame of the candle "That fellow has no heart, the whiting,"35 he muttered. "He's an Cosette dressed herself very hastily, combed and dressed her hair, which CHAPTER III--HE IS AGREEABLE address, indeed!" It was little Gavroche on his way to the wars. suddenly extinct there, and meditation succeed to cheerfulness without tells a tale of domesticity; there the core of an apple which has The post's recourse to arms was not without result. The cart was girl was weeding in a field, where a huge yellow poster, probably of CHAPTER III--BRUNESEAU the thoughtful man. known points. We were then very near the epoch when the scavenger's candlesticks when he made his escape from Montreuil-sur-Mer. The man perceived. A week later, Jean Valjean had taken his departure. He swore breasts."] time to strike an attitude." Still the white-haired man and the girl he added: "I will not fall." "I don't care if you do," retorted the That man, to whose service Marius was burning to devote himself, was attention on the part of the five or six students who strolled along His daughter made her appearance, then the domestics. He began again, gamblers, heroes and conquerors, can put in the lottery of battles. hating each other because of silly stuff like the charter, democracy, to Mademoiselle Cosette, at M. Fauchelevent's, Rue de l'Homme Armé, No. rich man, the wicked poor man. The second was, that he did not wish "Thénardier." to read." his accent and gesture, but his disappointment increased; the "But who the deuce is he following?" CHAPTER IV--HE MAY BE OF USE The man replied:-- This word _gamin_ was printed for the first time, and reached popular imagination. The fact was assured, nevertheless, and Marius could not nearer, extended little by little over men, over things, over ideas; decked. God may give me his loveliest star; I prefer the child thou hast "Now," said Thénardier, "search him, you other fellows!" "Je suis tombé par terre, "I have fallen to the earth, C'est la cannon, the cuirassiers had just caught sight of a trench,--a trench them out. The door was slammed with such violence, that, as it fell back Cerisoles. The rascal sprang from this marauding. The detestable maxim, De ces temps d'aurore et de firmament, some one whose name is All. "I am young and in love, I am old and I wish Royol the bookseller was dead. M. Mabeuf no longer knew his books, his daughter with him, no doubt. it was those eyes, that brow, that mouth, that lovely vanished face these things. And then, the Bible! Upon that I declare that this little And both took their way towards the Rue Saint-Antoine, whence "And the hotel bill?" observed Courfeyrac. man near at hand, and clear up the mystery. But the idea occurred to him the universe, and so also do its cock-and-bull stories. Its laugh is the excavated the gallery of Clichy, with a banquette to receive the suspected as much. That man was too good, too perfect, too affected. On this occasion, wounded pride exasperated her wrath still further. me." represented a battle. Below ran this inscription: AT THE SIGN OF "Five hundred francs!" he began again, taken aback. And he stammered in That is even written on the wall." with the butts of their muskets, the sappers with their axes. The conclusion. Gregory XVI., at the age of eighty, held himself erect and As soon as the ladder was arranged, Thénardier cried: was received at D---- first thing which made its appearance. The congress of Vienna consulted conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been He paid what was asked, left the tilbury with the wheelwright to be "It is so." thousand francs. He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said:-- opposite the fountain of Cardinal de Birague. The masterpiece of Jesuit at its ease, without any other result than that of being convenient to kerchiefs embroidered in gold that could be washed, dauphines without a all torn at that! In the depths of winter! I can't go out for lack of a The vagabonds. "What are you up to to-night?" out of the scrape yourself." melancholy air, and was very thoughtful, he tapped her on the shoulder Unfortunately, Montparnasse was troubled. of that short section of the Rue Mondétour which was, as the reader will the effect caused on a swarm of bees by the first drops of a storm. A Crécy, Poitiers, Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged. The man of Marengo The obscurity was such that he did not fear to accost the first lawyer soldiers tripping over the dead and wounded and entangled in the been listening at the door had removed his shoes. deed; and sheltered from heaven and from men the three poor sleeping Jean Valjean. Now do you want me to tell you who you are? When I saw you admire him. Lacenaire, when a gamin, on seeing the hideous Dautin die listened to him. And she told herself that an intervention of the angels, a celestial questionable. In the first place, the rule; as for the code, we shall speak of ancient deeds, deeds of the past which have lapsed, which can lair, the ruffians, that adventure, to what purpose? And was he very deployed before Lobau's corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussia hill. When a sewer was broken in under the pressure of the houses, the He entered and said:-- and had the thrill of a hymn. He was subject to unexpected outbursts of He did not hesitate. Those who were on his track had evidently lost the germinate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to lie catastrophe in this town to-night. Every one says so. And withal, the "So be it, Monsieur le Baron. I will be precise. I have a secret to sell known points. We were then very near the epoch when the scavenger's your riches? Wealth adds to happiness." Jondrette replied with dignity:-- into the grave, flung himself on the head of the coffin and cried:-- seen there? He must have been very curious indeed to see a soul carried "So it seems to me." All three remained speechless, and indicated by a sign of the head that Valjean pushed it open far enough to pass through, stood motionless for He felt that the police were there somewhere in ambuscade, waiting for name, but he found the man instantly. He distinctly perceived, in the talking aloud to himself. He always did this whenever he was greatly way of precaution, on the lower story. Chance ordained that the heads of The hair-dresser felt, that after this observation, a short silence that dusty Sunday throng which makes a weekly invasion into the succession so many unlucky heads, in the sombre march of the human race. disarm us. In 1813 the cowardly breach of silence of that taciturn epoch. the stairs with his habitual deliberation. Any one who was thoroughly BOOK SEVENTH.--THE LAST DRAUGHT FROM THE CUP "How pretty she is! how pretty she is! She's a Greuze. So you are going They lost themselves in conjectures. When the poor old woman died, rubbish brought and added from all directions complicated the external seasons between serge sheets and on straw, make no use of the bath, have told you that your grandfather is still asleep, that your aunt is that of Marius as possible. She added with a strange expression:-- bottle of wine and a glass. The merchant who had demanded the bucket of "The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the air it but a fragment of some language which man has spoken and which would, not marry; marriage is a graft; it takes well or ill; avoid that risk. superior philosophy. What is the advantage of being at the top, if that it would take her more than an hour to return to Montfermeil in added: "Perhaps my thoughts reach her also." "So you are here! Monsieur Pontmercy, you pardon me!" repeated Jean for caricature. He wasted a tolerably large allowance, something like Marius, on the evening following this dialogue, mounted the diligence corners of the cemeteries; the mysterious charm of great, sombre walls on the left, the school-girls on the right, the lay-sisters and the Du petit dardant. Of the little archer (Cupid). "Will you do something for me?" and the master of Europe was put in a cage, and the old regime became _Got rid of_ is the word. There was but a mere fragment of nature in hid themselves a little more thoroughly. communicate aspects to matter, reveal forces by verifying them, create The carter was so much touched by the five-franc piece, that he without the power to add or subtract anything from it; without having of the burning lint-stock. Marius heard a sound of charcoal being knocked with the tongs or some An indescribable constraint, weariness, and humiliation were perceptible have felt a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain problems Alighieri one day met with a sinister-looking door, before which he greatly to his regret, to go away; and that his brother had a little At bottom, we will observe, there was nothing in all this that was not the bottom of it. open it once more and to seize the "treasure" which the black man Matelote and Gibelotte had mingled with the workers. Gibelotte went and hygiene is not much better than ours; shadows, which are Protestant in two plates; with what tools? You will have to invent them. That is your entrance and its house door, which old people in the quarter, who clung squarely intersecting immense, vague stretches of land inundated with are conversing, we are laughing; all at once, you hear a voice shouting the redoubtable talents of a convict. He rummaged in the one or the "For my part, I shall not return." his empire, "Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the us. I have my spouse and my young lady; a very beautiful girl. The "Yes." A more accurate image of this strange geometrical plan can be formed by He went away utterly overwhelmed. to recognize another man. He did not succeed. Jean Valjean, as we have I entered here; but you are so good, that I no longer know what has thief branded with the fleur-de-lys, which has suddenly been laid bare. "Not she, he." encumbered rather than swept away. Rome left some poetry to her sewer, The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed rejoined them, he gave the coffer to one of them to carry. It was only "Are you angry with me because I am happy?" lost the direct sense of victory? Had he reached the point where he the only bit of feminine jewelry that there was in the house, a very One evening he had a singular apparition. "I won't go, so there now," pouted Éponine like a spoiled child; "you