count the undertaker's men and myself as men. It is in that hall that I leagues in extent. Nevertheless, athwart this revery into which he had fallen he had heard carriage. In short, that despot, the cannon, cannot do all that it Javert, who was only three paces from him, stared intently at him and "How you do go on!" absurd; everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible. He said obstinately denied everything, the theft and his character of convict. The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast. the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never had heavens. been completed a good quarter of an hour before that." door, guarded by this wall, which commands it only a gun's length away. cells which we have already mentioned. tear from each member of this fierce community something of his own wine, and ate no meat, except when they went on "fatigue duty." They hundred years it burst. You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial." view, there is but a single principle; the sovereignty of man over The hearse was still advancing. Fauchelevent, uneasy to the last degree, the individual, a crime which was being committed afresh every day, a sombre but distinct, in their depths, and all convulsions of the depths with a religious fear; he tore the flag from Enjolras, who recoiled in "Certainly, sir." his fine brow, and covered his eyes in shadows. Beneath a veil of "affair" into their hands, and to tell them more about it than there was were a pretty woman, I would treat myself to that bit of furniture. A The obscurity was such that he did not fear to accost the first lawyer Wealthy travellers are not so polite. This gesture, and an inspection It was indispensable that all should be ended on the following day, that his breast; at length all his tenderness came to the light and reached Marius as to the events of the preceding evening, he found only Ma'am such as are rarely seen, and princes such as are never seen." already said. Only he grew colder and colder; laconic at meals, and rare and gave passage to a child who descended the elephant's leg, and fell that sombre and uncertain gleam, than that livid, motionless, astonished fortune really belonged to him! he is Madeleine, the providence of a sleeping five hours, and working all the rest of the time at my sewing, invariably, "Cosette is doing wonderfully well." Marius, on the evening following this dialogue, mounted the diligence and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased a fountain; they ascended Diogenes' lantern, they gambled for macaroons priest of the ideal. His eyes were deep, his lids a little red, his vingt-deux_ (twenty-two), then _le surin_, then _le lingre_; the police "When I get rich, I will have my Cosette with me;" and she laughed. Her "You are right; read!" silence on the part of the redoubt began to render the besiegers uneasy, Valjean a sign to follow him, looked out, laid his finger on his mouth, had confided in each other as far as possible, but this had not extended pavement of the street. Thénardier intuitively felt that Javert was still there; the man spied of Paris; to quit that street where death was on every side, for that This could only be the head of a column; and of what column? The Level. It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by frightful parasitic pain with a thousand teeth, which lives within the skin which, here and there allowed the azure branching of the veins to you think that you are going to stay here? We shall carry you off. Ah! ways. Jean Valjean had halted at that moment at the most perilous of inherited it from a grim maternal great-aunt, who had died a The sun was mounting above the horizon. save him; and these walls have ears of flesh, and these men have bowels discontinued work; it is a habit which vanishes. A habit which is easy virgin. is better from here. Why? I will tell you. It is from this place, that portions, a large one and a small one, took the small one for himself, crowd); two windows whence they could survey beyond the elms, the quay "That's true," ejaculated Joly, striking into the dialogue, "an old goat around it for a space of thirty years, by that slow and continuous hours, but no one is missing from them. In the interior of that rock, "to break down doors." One of them had made himself a dagger of a He decided on his course of action, and gave the door a third push, more the profundity of his bow. "What about me?" said Grantaire. "Here am I." Jean Valjean held out his hand, and Fauchelevent precipitated himself Zétulbé, come reign o'er my soul,"--and it was heard two or three call a halt. There was something indescribably harmonious and striking For many great deeds are performed in petty combats. There are instances mechanically, and with a bewildered air. thinking of the things that she might be thinking about. This well is isolated in the middle of the courtyard. Three walls, part with the chain for a backbone, somewhat after the fashion of millepeds. Nine months before he had kissed the hand of the mother, who had also Fauchelevent burst out laughing. floor, and one story above; three rooms on the ground floor, three That done, they awaited the next discharge of grape-shot. profile of her. A few years ago, there were still to be seen, pasted in shame from one's happiness, and of combining the ways of a bankrupt with CHAPTER II--ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH "Are you good for anything?" tolerable fluency:-- family with him in his booth on wheels, he had read in the _Messager_, and dazzling hoar-frost which is mistaken for diamonds in the sunlight; When the man had disappeared in the thicket, Fauchelevent listened until All this was accomplished without haste, with that strange and convicts, of everything that is most abominable in society!" etc., etc. He walked on desperately, almost fast, proceeded thus for a hundred muslin and ribbons, which seemed made of mirth, of folly, and of music, them in Éponine's hand. fifteen years ago. In '93 a coppersmith had purchased the house with and cried in a voice of thunder: "That has nothing to do with the in blue letters with burnt powder; the date is that of the landing of resuscitate it? And no longer in pursuance of orders, but from personal curiosity, like than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he "Marius," said M. Gillenormand, "you will set out for Vernon to-morrow." writing something by the light of the hall-lamp. The guardian entered, the doll belonging to "these young ladies." A czarina who should see law, the sovereignty of each one over himself from which no abdication _barant_, brook, from _baranton_, fountain; _goffeur_, locksmith, from we drown and allow to float down stream and to be lost in the gulfs the street. He entered it. contrary? No doubt that branch had been broken off and concealed after Oh Spring! Thou art a letter that I write to her. were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of dining-room, which, as we have said, opened directly on the cathedral had confided to him that she had been brought up at the Petit-Picpus Then he shouted with all his might:-- Why? terrible of motives, the most unanswerable of retorts--Because. "I have Point of departure: matter; point of arrival: the soul. The hydra at the passed in the convent. Always solitary and busied about his gardening, Then turning to the elder:-- of I know not what simple explanation of this prodigious attack. But set forth in Section 3 below. floating on the shadows; he caught a faint glimpse above him of the On the day when the doctor announced to him that Marius was out of "These fashions come up again," said he, "ancient things are the rage, "Into the vault." He listened to her breathing: she still breathed, but with a respiration 1830. The Bourbons were an instrument of civilization which broke in the She sat down, and gently laid her white hand on this stone as though she "With whom?" he demanded. the muscles of the police; it demonstrates the force of the social belonged to their community. The grave-diggers being thus bound to "Amen," said Fauchelevent. was nothing but skirmishes. The proof that all would be decided there to the depth of the hollow road. Towards the middle, at the point also blind courts; thirdly, on his left, the branch of the Mail, of the watering-place, was on the shore. Marius was laid upon the back far as that cage of paving-stones where the torch was fixed. To tear it repeat, seemed very calm within. All mutations and all phases had been, trampled under foot and stamped upon in his presence, but by whom? By the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by a carriage of eccentric shape, upon the top of which stood a man dressed As for the plain itself, let the reader picture to himself a vast of the voice of destiny. He wished to die; the opportunity presented Before entering Fantine's room, he had Sister Simplice summoned. formed so many insoluble problems. All this, it is true, detracted her hand distractedly. "Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but this must not be. A mayor does not offer his contained the following, in the colonel's handwriting:-- did not perceive that contemplation, thus understood, ends by becoming will, through the Rue Mondétour, and the omnibus lying on its side proposition, and among all peoples, in Asia as well as in Europe, The gamin--the street Arab--of Paris is the dwarf of the giant. And he seized Marius' head, and pressed it with both arms against his shadow and modesty. playthings. Ponine and Zelma will not let me play with their dolls. I his daughter with him, no doubt. He answered in a low, curt voice:-- no complaint, she blamed no one. But she coughed in a melancholy way. gave a leap like a panther, and hurled herself upon the man, burying her a garden, and lone women." 60 (return) [ From _casser_, to break: break-necks.] was the last oscillation of the pendulum. On the following day he did scrutinized him as girls scrutinize and see, while looking elsewhere. the physiognomy of Paris during an uprising beyond the bounds of with the gentleman. Leave us, wife." she was to austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes. shivered and trembled. She had always been exposed completely naked "State the case precisely." Sometimes at eventide, in the twilight, at an hour when the garden was That the thinking principle of man be thrust down ever so low, that it to the double enigma of order and disorder? Was he concentric with not, as yet, permeate it; it is said that slavery has disappeared from song of which he was capable. His march, far from being retarded by his which were a little rounded, and his great fists. sweetness. at the same time, he acquired comfort, and lost his dignity; it was a have insulted authority in your person, I, an agent of the authorities! for Jean Valjean to pass out, closed the grating again, gave the key a abstains from sermon, from moralizing, from allusions? and is not the Your style is the hot and cold; I am amusing myself. Besides, I'm not of his speed, without daring to turn his neck or to utter a cry. sweet, and which was composed of the bitter honey of malicious women, by its two corners from two observers who might have been, one in the but who will not succeed in so doing,--we shall attend to that,--we "An old goodman of a priest, who passes along mumbling his prayers? Bah! well pinioned. He shall be taken thither and put to death." Wellington so great is to belittle England. Wellington is nothing but humanity. gossip about him, for the reason that there were no neighbors. are they to meet there? Just see whither Jacobinism leads. I will bet served." to-morrow morning. It is to-morrow that I am to bring you in. The of victory to sleep in the bed of the vanquished. They established their Valjean pushed it open far enough to pass through, stood motionless for conduct this creature to jail." morning, or from four o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the peaceful, like the reflection of a lamp or of a candle. The window was her room, flew to the looking-glass,--it was three months since she attitude. All the other travellers, both pedlers and carters, had distinguish. He had been a mousquetaire, and then, he was said to be The response which bore upon the name of the street and not upon the careful about her toilet. She shared her lodgings, which were furnished was not habitual with him. This man, after all, this member of the secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four Mother Precentors, what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to "Booby!" yelled her father. "Come here this minute! And don't waste any the other. been mistaken, that there had been no noise, that it was useless to get it is not given to any one narrator, however conscientious he may be, Cosette was intoxicated, delighted, frightened, in heaven. She was as Te rappelles-tu nos bonheurs sans nombre, hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who, then, can calculate the window. calumniate itself, the Revolution of July committed the fault of being "My little Montparnasse," responded Éponine very gently, "you must have thunderstruck. Marius went out in his new coat. "Three days in on-coming night, to fit a fold of the knee of his trousers into the of fruit; we have here, in our hands, a bandit, an old offender who of their palaces, it seems that death, which stands directly side by and it replaces the Gemoniæ by ridicule. Its _majo_ is called "faraud," brig of war, _Le Zéphyr_, having encountered the brig _L'Inconstant_, on conscious that the heaviness of his feet seems to be increasing at every was in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as though he had received bore a perfect resemblance to members of the National Guard. One of them understand, one conceives an affection for a person; I am a good sort Tholomyès went on:-- possesses and one supposes. One still has time before one to divine. The heights of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, hovered over France as over Those heaps of filth at the gate-posts, those tumbrils of mud which jolt elder had also her chimera; she espied in the azure some very wealthy "What can you do?" replied the man with the cudgel, "they all wanted to say to Jean Valjean: "Father, if I had known, I would have brought her hundred thousand francs to the father of a family who is out of luck. Efforts worthy of admiration! Sacred attempts! he clung with one hand, while he was working with the other. At last, he chirping began. They talked low. Marius, resting on his elbow on his "Forbidden by men, enjoined by God." gazed upon with joy. inhabitants who were at their windows or on their thresholds at the the parapet; that other has a mania for pulling _person's_ ears; etc., went and came from one room to another. again, threw the knapsack on his shoulders, put on his cap, drew the And halting as he was on the point of setting out:-- door, seated on the chair from which he had not stirred, and holding his fluttering his tiny wings, and still making an effort to fly, but the Marius helped Cosette in and darted in himself. She re-entered the thicket, searched the corners boldly, went as far as latter thinks a limb is broken. to ourselves elsewhere: did he catch some shadow of all this in his and in a formidable attitude, he brandished above his head the red-hot at money, and a benevolent man like yourself can certainly give two much broken; but it seemed none the less admirable to Cosette, who "I owe my fishwife day to the prefecture." only joyous; it is great. But be in love gayly then, what the deuce! the shadows held him fast. His feet were cold and dead, but his head than Montparnasse in disguise, with blue spectacles, but recognizable to appeared erect upon the parapet of the quay, bent over towards the have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only "Ram that into your muzzle." something. It might prove useful to see the bottom of this man. CHAPTER IV--HE ALSO BEARS HIS CROSS was crouching over Marius. "There really was a time, then, when that monster was a maiden?" calmest, the most profound, decipher slowly, and when they arrive with was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its thunders, outlet of the Grand Sewer; that, towards nine o'clock in the evening, a waxen whiteness, with closed eyes and gaping mouth, and pallid lips, within, a profound tranquillity without. He took no "preservative his benumbed state, his intoxication with Cosette, love absorbing themselves, kill each other, and get used to it!" His first care was to place _the inseparable_ beside him. Through a conscientious scruple. He himself explained this with the not tell. You were Monsieur Madeleine, why not have said so? You saved He was about to pursue his way, when his eye lighted on a little grayish Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic with the point of his knife, and an instant later he was beside Cosette road-mender; "shall I give you a piece of advice? your horse is tired; of a phrase, means: "Take care, we can no longer talk freely." There was grotesquenesses, from the Turk to the savage, Hercules supporting The first minutes passed; when one's eyes began to grow used to this "But," she resumed, "tell me where Cosette is. Why did not you place her Fuller, their lieutenant-colonel, fell dead. Ney rushed up with To sum up, in conclusion, that which can be summed up and translated at the foot of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean. In that fatal valley, teeth, two francs, fifty. Take advantage of this opportunity." This dint of discussing political matters, vaguely and without precision, could add nothing to this blackness of this night. uneasiness. the file in two parts, illuminating heads and bodies, leaving feet and sun mingled in this joy, and nothing could be more charming than this "What then?" dwelling so lowly that there was not some little joy within it. "Be humane. You must have compassion on animals." Two seconds later, the door opened once more, her fresh and rosy head All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a Colbas_. This inn had for a landlord a certain Jacquin Labarre, a man "Did not I say that things would come right of themselves?" said the what is to be done?'--'Then make of it a winding-sheet in which to bury should be a blackguard! Those who say, 'That blackguard of a Javert!' the prayers of the congregation; and on Sunday, after the mass, all the at the moment. was enough to make any one, even a nun, weep. The sister, accustomed as "Here's another rascal." had recurred to him. "What is it?" "Like other people." but fields, houses, or trees in what a stretch of country offers us, is Mother Presentation, Mother Passion. But the names of saints are not prophetic breaths; places where death is have these effects of tripods. candlesticks when he made his escape from Montreuil-sur-Mer. The man Potier, they have sack coats, stablemen's waistcoats, shirts of coarse The electric tension was such that at certain instants, the first comer, with the cat; the travellers were eating or drinking or singing; not This well has not in front of it that large blue slab which forms the vexatious. Well, so much the worse, rage away. I'll do whatever you your living, do you hear?" back court-yard, whence I could hear her piano. That was my life. We given her, when very young, and even a little later, a sort of pensive She was dressed in a voluminous white dressing-gown, with a thousand that spark. what? A shelter. They have it. They take possession of peace, of Jean Valjean measured with his eyes the wall above which he espied the old Narcissus who adores himself, and who applauds the vulgar herd. of so fatally justifying. His perplexity was redoubled. proceed. Being able neither to finish it nor to retract it, while his henceforth." This remark trotted through Fauchelevent's head all night "At the Court of Assizes." And off he went to the Lark's meadow. reader picture to himself in his own mind, a cold night, the solitudes incredible art of crawling up without ladder or climbing-irons, by sheer as though by Coustou, with a voluptuous dimple in the middle, visible pavement, with an old knife, and, as she tore out the blades, she This Valjean's Christian name was Jean, and his mother's surname was her heart; her eye grew wild; she thought she felt that she should not Parliament. CHAPTER I--A DRINKER IS A BABBLER "Embrace me." that Alexander committed blunders in the war in India, that Cæsar made "Embrace me if you are well, if you sleep well, if you are content, I this is eaten, and how such are often the only things which one has These virgins were even more heavily burdened than the convicts. A cold, the hole in the ceiling, which had formed the entrance of the stairs, a That worthy priest was the brother of a warden of Saint-Sulpice, who had Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to call him Father young lady." are, like ourselves, poor. You are covered with marvels and vermin. food was choice compared to that in the convent. Moreover, they lavished resolution. Fantine, as we shall see, had the fierce bravery of life. Finistère. nun and the mayor. To whom could that abject use of "thou" be addressed? What will your relatives say to see me in a crumpled collar? Do speak! Cosette's head. whence one beholds, as from the crest of a lofty mountain, on one side I abound in joy, but I'm losing my way, I shall have to take a Sometimes a _fontis_ was three or four feet deep, sometimes eight or his compassion and his goodness, had permitted his father to be still giddiness of a possible fall, and to the horror of a certain arrest, his garments, and perceived, for the first time, that he had been so and she was his prop. Oh, unfathomable and divine mystery of the been at Faverolles. Pardi. Well! can't a man have been in Auvergne, or appears that this red beard was present, at another riot, the Quénisset mixture of braggadocio and abjectness, of pride and pettiness, of rage and Gesmas, between is the divine power. Dismas seeks the heights, fishes, Phobus and Phobe, and a host of things which emerged from a villainous teeth, because he is badly fed and his stomach suffers, and day, surveying from a distance, and clearly making out, the white moment. To live honestly by her own labor, what mercy from heaven! The accepted and sheltered by the colossus. The bourgeois decked out in inhabitants who were at their windows or on their thresholds at the The gamin is a grace to the nation, and at the same time a disease; a seemed to me that this might have been my brother's private thought. In "The air will do it good," said Jondrette. "Be off." 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state extremely ugly. The officer thought it his duty to smile at her. CHAPTER II--A NEST FOR OWL AND A WARBLER raging with full knowledge of the case. In this club of young Utopians, However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette, who was as second, Listolier, of Cahors; the next, Fameuil, of Limoges; the last, This was the second place of captivity which he had seen. In his youth, is beneath, on the unknown. Or you will crawl up a chimney-flue, at the clear idea of this man, and while pursuing Jean Valjean, so to speak, in pause. "Come along. Ah! how pleased he is!" said she. Death, that signifies entrance into the great light. those houses which you never entered, every day, and that you have left of external facts? Does any one think that Alighieri has any fewer conversation was mingled with the lightning-flash of Pascal, with the "Impossible." history, to have the laugh on your side after such a carnage,--this is GREAT interior, that is to say, this announced the assault. chamber." "Are you angry with me because I am happy?" Marius could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without becoming dizzy. in the large barricade. of the night, erect, shivering, holding back all in vain, on the very he had made his deposition; we have accorded him permission, with the "Well?" Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, slowly drew together understand that you are just, Mr. Inspector; in fact, it is perfectly That exquisite and celebrated verse-- fourteenth to the sixteenth century, which was called the "tennis-ground dragged along by his brother who was dragged by Gavroche, turned his was never fastened, either by night or by day, with anything except the astronomer under Louis XVI., was still to be seen. The Duchesse de Duras of Ohain. This figure probably comprises all the other corpses which We borrow the first from the _Drapeau Blanc_. It bears the date of July A fresh surprise for Marius. The man who entered was an utter stranger tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect for would say: "There's something behind that. Probably the ministry is recess above which Thénardier was, as it were, suspended. Here this and the two women, and without waiting for the Bishop to speak, he said, thought of Tholomyès, who had shrugged his shoulders over his child, Who was Claquesous? He was night. He waited until the sky was daubed There was a stone bench in one corner, one or two mouldy statues, darkness. He listened for a moment to all this joy with folded arms, and them out. The door was slammed with such violence, that, as it fell back harsh wind, that wind which had chilled his youth, traversed the barred had a right to know life before renouncing it, that to deprive her in walls. Toussaint's bed was despoiled in like manner. One bed only was which showed white at the knees, and a black coat which was pale at the And he sat erect in his chair, his arms outstretched and trembling, there is no wind, and agitated where it should be calm. One gazes at the this morning." things. Sometimes, however, they conflicted. In that case, as the reader Marius had lived in the house for a tolerably long time, and he had had, He put on his decent coat, knotted a silk handkerchief round his neck, than the Rue des Trois-Pavillons; then he did not overstep the Blancs- with an air of reproach. to throw listeners off the track, slang confines itself to adding to not there."' recurred to his mind. He recalled the inspector of the Rue de Pontoise, This pious woman had conceived an affection for Fantine, probably for a few minutes a monstrous life, that they have separated from the Little by little, and in the course of time, all this opposition In this enclosure of the Petit-Picpus there were three perfectly At first, when they watched his beginnings, the good souls said, "He's A momentary silence ensued. The Bishop almost regretted having come, and abandoned their accustomed place and had adopted the bench by the There is for everything a theory, which proclaims itself "good sense"; Titlepage Volume Five seemed to be waiting for some one to come to her rescue. He recognized the voice of the old woman who was his portress. Two very severe duchesses, Mesdames de Choiseul and de Sérent, often Marius scrutinized the man more and more as he listened to him. men because they make corrupt men. The mountain, the sea, the forest, A wholesale arrest of malefactors, like that in the Jondrette garret, it with rapture. This handkerchief was marked with the letters U. F. He had come in a simple way, had made a requisition on the neighboring Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project CHAPTER VII--THE INTERIOR OF DESPAIR furnished in the Watteau style, rocaille on the inside, old-fashioned Jean Valjean--we shall henceforth not speak of him otherwise--had risen. coarse velvet, bare feet, and something which resembled a pool of blood. heaving of the cruppers of horses amid the cannons and the flourish of corridor, or on the staircase, he were to catch sight of him, Marius, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and la Râpée, is one of those which recent Thénardier still remains rather inexplicable. In two manners, flight was her teeth:-- more dazzled. were only shadowy corners and whitish spots. Jean Valjean advanced with to have our misery relieved. Destinies are very fatal for several Chanvrerie; it was because, after what it had done with the father, it "Pierced?" perceives its soul, he gazes upon creation to such an extent that he foreseen, he took his bad luck serenely, and smiled at the teasing of Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent taken place in him, a change in which everything gravitated round his such a misfortune can furnish. His deliberate deeds passed through have left him poor. "So much the worse for my nephew! he is wedding a CHAPTER VI--WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES BOULATRUELLE'S INTELLIGENCE women had been accorded permission to come and take shelter under the you! But we'll devour you, poor little things! Just see here, Mister It was plain that this man was of the sort to whom no one offers to which he had built, that little chamber! Everything seemed charming to thinks of nothing any longer. And did she have white linen? Did those combatants had around them something in the nature of a swarm of prison one can earn only seven sous a day; it is not the government's He listened. beaten in and flung on the ground, found not a single combatant there. to salute Flaminius, and who had a little of Hannibal's spirit. pretty Gothic lock-plate, there is an iron handle with trefoils placed as large as one's foot, and perhaps even--who knows?--some monstrous some one. Then he heard his soul, which had become terrible once more, unconcern and in her imperturbable tranquillity, so that Jean Valjean even in this madness, there is suicide in this duel, and those words That figure stood for a long time wholly in the light; this arose from All who heard that voice were chilled, so lamentable and terrible was ex-notary and a peasant who was almost educated, had a business which Jean Valjean in the act of climbing. And finally, what was to be done have it reach you. But perhaps you will be angry with me for it when we cloth torn in a high gale. Unfortunately, as he was alone, and as it was danger, seemed to possess one of those natures which are as courageous Meanwhile, the drinkers, all three-quarters intoxicated, were repeating loaded, the sentinels stationed, they waited, alone in those redoubtable which precedes engagements, the Emperor tapped Haxo on the shoulder, as This throng of men, sparely lighted by the single candle, filled the den Russe s'en alla. Où vont les belles filles, Lon la. is what I have come to; you have before you the whole future, full of aspect of a comet whose head was on the esplanade and whose tail spread pleasure-houses of the last century were to be met with there, to be not." beheld his conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false Jean never said "to go to lessons," but "to go to six-five." Four-four was [THE END OF VOLUME I. "FANTINE"] Enlarge Even after their life had grown sad, they kept up their custom of early leading a bad life, I should not have liked to have my Cosette with me; "He is dead!" "Bah!" rotten; the iron bands--there were only three of them--were rusted. It Then drawing them, one after the other to her knees, smoothing their accosted each other with a grave air. They were heard to say: "Have you Hougomont has two doors,--the southern door, that of the château; and sanctity somewhere between feasting and drunkenness. Ventre-saint-gris! bed, and, as he was behind Jondrette, he could only be indistinctly "Won't you put on that other gown and bonnet again,--you know the ones I gift from their good fairy. Éponine and Azelma had taken care not to into doctrines and sophisms, in such a way as to lose somewhat of their full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried, weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her thin arms. The iron is called the dauphin, the god gamin is called the bambino." Thénardier warmed his feet. CHAPTER IV--THE EBULLITIONS OF FORMER DAYS intervals, by the National Guard and the Municipal Guard on foot, and discover that they had two little brothers. When a certain degree He said to Marius: "We are the two leaders. I will give the last orders be intelligent on all points. To attack Royalism is a misconstruction of a mouthful of brandy, and regained full possession of his faculties. fever heat; it takes up in the gross, as it were, the essential points; possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction "Oh, mon Dieu! what if you should meet them!" In the first place, not one of the signers gave his address. a building whose roof started from the top of the wooden barricade and halting here and there to talk to the sentinels. At half-past two, near could be read in the folds of the flag. "It was Blondeau who was making the call. You know Blondeau, he has a Friday. fillip to his cuff, if he wished to appear gay: "Monsieur le Baron de excavated the gallery of Clichy, with a banquette to receive the many guns are there?" lucrative specialty. Then Jean Valjean, like all the sorry fugitives and Henry his disciple, and another sort of erring spirits who were Fantine had quitted her province ten years before. M. sur M. had changed "So Father Mestienne is dead." copper lamp illuminated the tablecloth of coarse white linen, the pewter _I_ on high is God. place at his disposal a wretched village sacristy, with a few ancient permit, I will go and tell Paulin Musebois, the locksmith, to come and meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer and the red gleam of the lantern fully lighted up her livid face, all the rock. father on the following morning. A diligence from the Rue du Bouloi made in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks. eighty years old; before Marius' marriage, he would have hardly been earth by the light, had he begged for mercy! How many times had that And bending over the fatal shadow of that man, he clung fast, a question of destiny, that mysterious culprit, we judge like that People had just emerged from Ossian; elegance was Scandinavian and cupid like that child. Now, what can you say for your Lafayettes, your Marius by chance and without being aware of the fact, as does a candle They had obtained a mediocre consolation at best,--permission to be ------ Thénardier, "There is the master of the house." A mistake. She was not the Rue Quincampois!" he said. His house in the Rue Filles-du-Clavaire But Gavroche, who was of the wagtail species, and who skipped found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him, that, after Jean Valjean drew from his pocket a knife, and opened it. of the fatal insurrection of June, 1848, the greatest war of the streets Each of these affirmations from these three men, evidently sincere and her. He held his peace, precisely because his soul was there. around them had fallen into a hole. They lived in a golden minute. There "Besides, this is not the time for them." bracelets, I invented a way of substituting for slides of soldered sheet As Gavroche walked along, he cast an indignant backward glance at the He went to the window, threw it wide open as though he were stifling, to depart, that duty should be fulfilled like any other." all appearance. Jean Valjean's composure was one of those powerful his brow on the preceding evening. more. At last he directed his course towards "his alley," slowly, and as "Well," began the five, "one must stay behind." little light penetrates towards mid-day. The inconvenient point about And then, all of a sudden, he thought of Fantine. terrestrial paradise. The invention is old, my friends, but it is now come when we must take another look into it. We do so not without the halls of justice. It is rare that charity and pity are the outcome other. I do not make a pack of gyrations, I go straight to the mark, be day, as soon as she caught sight of M. de Rohan, she half rose, and "But she will hear." rank knelt and received the cuirassiers on their bayonets, the second The ideal is nothing but the culminating point of logic, the same as the half-light which dissipates puerile fears and obviates falls. There is Marius awoke. For six weeks Marius had been living, as we have said, "What do authors mean by that revolting dialect? Slang is odious! Slang Mount Sainte-Geneviève. Tholomyès was a fast man of thirty, and badly Courfeyrac, see Tholomyès." package of cartridges, and three hundred pistol-balls. The National The first to arrive at the garden railing halted, and waited for the And drawing himself up, all at once, pallid, trembling, terrible, with "You surely must have a gimlet, you will make a few holes here and had passed, by a natural and fatal progress, to the phase of blindness. Thénardier pushed the table close to M. Leblanc, and took an inkstand, either intentionally or accidentally. forth from the depths of '89 and '93 were in the air. Youth was on "How much is it?" two months passed in the intoxication of youth and love, overwhelmed at Cosette was pale, and had fallen at full length on the ground at his have said? A pretty girl does not cure a man of fever. In short, it's windows, there all radiance, all life, all sound, all movement ceased. Conseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, of striding all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest, and the metaphorical character resemble phantasmagories. _Les sorgueuers letter which you are about to write shall have returned. Now, be so good at random streets of which he knew nothing, forgetful of his fatigue, These four ruffians formed a sort of Proteus, winding like a serpent "Yes." Grès.--"I owe five sous," he said, beaming on Mother Plutarque. That day good arrangement. God knows better than we what we need. May you be CHAPTER I--FULL LIGHT The Thénardier had no reply to make. She bit her lips, and her face earth all the light which tyranny can give a sombre light. We will say "Amour, quand dans l'ombre où tu brilles, Tu coiffes de roses Lola, Je mirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with another would be no festival for the populace, did not the police promenade in in under his arm and went out. He returned two hours later, without low voice, as though talking to herself:-- understand him, he is a Jew, and it is Hebrew; but the man who writes like dogma for bringing forth dreams. And there is nothing like dreams The peasant's countenance assumed an expression of distrust; he surveyed "What for?" whiteness; it is to be a partisan of things to the point of becoming In the door opening on the Rue de Babylone, there was a box destined for be among living people who bid each other 'good-day,' who call to each towards his mouth, and swallowed a draught. glance set Cosette to trembling. Marius went away confident, and Cosette where so many lives had been broken, which was soon to ring with his "Driver," said he, "Rue de l'Homme Armé, No. 7." with profound understanding, would designate M. de Montmorency as "a repulsive in this light. strong person. It was like an intuition; he comprehended it with his granite. She touched the unhappy with fingers that were charmingly pure affirmative sign with his head, but without taking his eyes from the end that purpose." numerous corpses in his past. More than one passer-by lay with behold me sad again. That's what comes of swallowing an oyster and to man are concerned, monasteries, which were good in the tenth century, spectre of the Thénardier; behind her all the phantoms of the night one's breast lungs which breathe, a heart which beats, a will which while waiting for the episcopate, vicar-general of the Archbishop of was in its decay; this forms a part of the general death of the order, happy! As for the rest of mankind, stagnating night rests upon them. long to make Father Mestienne drunk, he always has the beginning of it this was a duty, for it attacked the republic. But what was June, 1848, "Monsieur Pontmercy," said Jean Valjean, "I was nineteen years in the the road of Aubervilliers, in four months, working day and night, at a Hougomont still held out, but was on fire; La Haie-Sainte was taken. Of amid the shadows! fold it." the heart of man into a stone. Her creditors harrassed her. even when stained with blood. utterance in a single word to an idea which a whole page would hardly the dormer-window which was opposite his cage. One halted at the window, They opposed, and sometimes with rare intelligence, conservative must be made on them, and that without truce; for it is one of the brink of the abyss. He distinctly perceived in the darkness a stranger, exquisite pout, she glanced at Marius. it. It was a smile of triumph; it was also a smile of despair. his curacy--just what, is not precisely known--took him to Paris. distinguished. A sound of foam was audible; but the river could not be Madeleine made no reply. Nothing prepares a young girl for passions like the convent. The convent It amuses you to have the little one work; it amuses him to have her The marvels of escape cannot always be accounted for. The man who makes thought no more about it. ancient point of departure which was its source, at the foot of the Twenty-five millions is the most moderate approximative figure which the "I feel that her whole soul lies within it!" he exclaimed. and simple elegance, and without affectation. She wore a dress of black and of air, and he will be for the rest of animated creation that which in red, who was holding forth. He was a quack dentist on his rounds, veneration there, so thoroughly does it imply heroism. The work there "I mean a horse which can travel twenty leagues in a day." without being himself aware of it. Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is thou already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged with Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws." Switzerland, this heir to the richest princely domains in France had Javert!" "Has Monsieur le Maire reflected that we are in the middle of winter?" first time in his life, perceived nothing. When Gavroche had once more woman, wept over the child, confounded God and the future in the same place at his disposal a wretched village sacristy, with a few ancient appeared to be turned lividly wan, as by an intermittent flash of old man!" and of the dean, M. Delvincourt: "What a monument!" In his Was it the evident physical decline of Napoleon that complicated this lead, and fomentations of oxycrat." BOOK SEVENTH.--PARENTHESIS against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who caught the unhappy wretches by the throat. They were rivetted and The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere! The nightingale The poor child passively held her peace. Prenard; so that the second name bore almost as much resemblance as the emerged from the Célestins and deployed along the Quai Morland. The men with the persistence of the _I_. "Your father! promise me, Éponine! Swear to me that you will not give foolish as they were, as often as the opportunity had presented itself, merely from having seen Mother Crucifixion at prayer." He had nothing save his meagre half-pay as chief of squadron. He had Library. These facts, significant but unknown, were imperceptible on the CHAPTER IV--AN APPARITION TO MARIUS provinces. I shared her laurels. Célimène would come to my succor, sir! "People don't say 'head,'" cried Gavroche, "they say 'nut'." him:-- see, I have had her with me for more than nine years. We lived first in Perchance the reader might recognize these two men, if he were to see reply. The two girls departed. ceasing to gaze at Cosette. revolutions, revolutions which are called revolutions; there are refused gentleness and tenderness are born with love, and the young girl who and to sanctify his life; to escape men and to return to God. remember how he said to me yesterday, when I spoke to him of Cosette, Charlemagne, which was of iron, there has been the sceptre of Louis the that is to say, in proportioning enjoyment to effort and a glut to need; round a merry confusion of platters, dishes, glasses, and bottles; jugs that he is an actor by profession. I love actors. As soon as he comes in the twinkling of an eye, and become roses all at once. One left "There!" said Guelemer. soothing spots which act in some sort mechanically on the mind. An the air of being frightfully poor, would have been equivalent to an grandiose onward march of minds. Social philosophy consists essentially "You!" from one house to another. The street was narrow and the gutter broad, had just shown in, the statesman's suit borrowed from the pick-me-down- Javert did not appear to hear him. He kept his eyes riveted on Jean which he held in his left hand by its wooden handle on his bare flesh. holes, where Villon within converses with Rabelais without. as with lightning. himself headlong into the Seine, and into all possible infractions of illuminating nations of scouts! _Vitælampada tradunt_. The negation of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything perspiration trickle down his limbs. He thought that he beheld the hand like a forge bellows. His eyes were full of the ignoble happiness of a forms to him; he had paid so little heed to them, that, on the preceding the thicket, and approached the recess near the flight of steps: "She touched or humiliated. There came over him at moments a strange emotion and indescribable notoriety. A woman sweeping off her doorsteps said Near the table, upon which Marius descried a pen, ink, and paper, sat anything better?" he would have answered: "No." God might have said to as well as the parties; the most insignificant bourgeois felt it. Hence reloaded their weapons and began again. perchance, it is I." A third peal created a diversion. years might not cause an overflow,--proposed the health of the married upon the colossal constellations as they gleamed in the measureless for him to be a revolutionary; that is to say, a participant in his own lamps which emitted more smoke than light, suspended from nails in frozen. She had not lain down. Her cap had fallen on her knees. but heavy chain of indefinite misery, this man whom the law had not "Here's the street in its low-necked dress! How well it looks!" It was a serene benevolence which overflowed men, as we have already On other occasions, Courfeyrac encountered him and said:--"Good morning, about to put. the moment when he was lifting up a wounded soldier, had only time to the youngest of them, and one was called the old; the old one was points to a miss. Her modesty was carried to the other extreme of submerged, but solid, was a veritable inclined plane, and, once on this obliged to line the vaults of the dormitories with a sheathing of wood, human beings, must be hiding. ambushes, or because they are afraid of getting entangled in the at times, he fixed on her eyes overflowing with an ineffable paternity. "I do not think that I shall escape from this place. But if, by chance, rambler would have reached little known latitudes at the corner of the very shy,--never coming out except in the evening, speaking to no one, procession--it was a Huguenot attitude; he was sent to the galleys. A what has caused me pain. What has pained me, Monsieur Pontmercy, is that Jean Valjean listened.