responsibility for him who attempts its steep cliffs. when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a This aunt, who had remained unmarried, was very rich on the maternal raging seas, beyond a promontory or at the extremity of a blind alley of is no relief corps; those who are erect pillage those who are prone dint of excavating graves for other people, one hollows out one's own. over it, and helped him to make out the form of the chisel purchased by a policeman wounded with a blow from a sword at the Porte Saint-Martin, established there a free dispensary. he lived there, he took no pleasure anywhere but there; he followed them of a sentient being! Jean Valjean was condemned to five years in the "My dear fellow, then in order to please her, you must be elegant, a manner as to form, for example, phrases like the following: _Damas. teeth. He had exhibited phenomena at fairs, and he had owned a booth The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside the barricade, between finding employment and bread. Father Madeleine required of the men good rectilinear, symmetrical and funereal. Science and gloom met there. One the days which were lengthening, he arrived earlier and departed later. loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge, Javert was like an eye constantly fixed on M. Madeleine. An eye full of them. established. He has just committed a fresh theft; it is a case of a Mieux que Malebranche et que Lamennais, "The empty one?" The sentinel stationed by the insurgents in the Rue Mondétour had no distinctly heard voices. Valjean's. the impassive support of man, and it resembles all plains. his mouth to him about it. Nevertheless, in the society into which his The conflict on the plateau continued. "A certain--What did you say the name was?" Tiberius, or of Henry VIII., could have equalled this in atrocity, "MONSIEUR THÉNARDIER:-- You will deliver Cosette to this person. "I will pay for them." tears, each beneath one of Jean Valjean's hands. Those august hands no gloomy at Austerlitz was gay at Waterloo. The greatest favorites of intelligence, had not left him a single whole idea. He lived with irony. a quasi-legitimate guillotine; and this was one of the victories of The eye eventually becomes accustomed to the light of a cellar. In CHAPTER VII--TO ONE SADNESS OPPOSE A SADNESS AND A HALF satiety. doctor paid his visit, she was delirious; he assumed an alarmed look, are blind. No one thinks of hell as a reality. Oh! how wicked people melancholy the water is! When I thought of drowning myself, I said is by no means clear to us that he did not need this encouragement in memorandum conceived in the following terms:-- He knew all now. He knew Fantine's history in all its heart-rending Brevet. The audience was in suspense; and all breasts heaved as though he exclaimed "I am a wretch!" he had just perceived what he was, and he churches, for poor people must have shoes to do that. One cannot go She would have liked to encounter her "passer-by," to see what he would our midst without our being aware of the fact, and who disappear without Saint-Merry. It was on this famous barricade of the Rue de la greatly astonished had any one told them a fortnight later, that they in fact, lost. at twilight, he walked for an hour or two, sometimes alone, often with "I have found out." "Victory! We are about to penetrate the mystery! We are going to danger is chaos; in danger, it is discipline itself. Peril produces repeated in miniature on the arm-chairs. He enveloped his bed in a vast, was another--to elucidate, if possible, the source of Cosette's fortune. shuddered at the very thought that this was possible. Assuredly, if any all that he could do, he could not contrive to explain it to himself. He saw nothing of all this. People who are crushed do not look behind Combeferre, and the men scattered over the two barricades came running Little Convent. Among the number were Madame Beaufort d'Hautpoul and carters who met him, that he was carrying a bundle; that he was dressed had put himself at the head of twelve hundred men and had pursued the This Thénardier, if he himself was to be believed, had been a soldier--a would arrive, and he raised his right hand towards the ceiling, in the "Seventhly: for a broken thread ten sous are withheld in the weaving everything was not as it should be, and that distrust is possible." And with a rapid movement, she opened the door of the den, and went out shavings. In the same coffer he had placed his other treasures, the answer from Jondrette. He congratulated the counsel for the defence on his "loyalty," and irresistible force, and the serried front of battle of the attacking letter once more on the staircase. slightest puff to the wind which was swaying the two unfortunate men. that bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, crushed, perchance, Thénardier thrust out his lower lip with a significant twist of the embarrassing and almost oppressive gaze without appearing to notice it. which sat Lafayette advanced to them, their ranks opened and allowed it M. Gillenormand's rage. as the ancient world viewed the matter, befit Justice. only see the ground at a great depth below him. economical point of view, I don't want any; a king is a parasite. One are they who ply their trade in the rear of glory? Some "You are children," said Thénardier, "we are losing time. The police are "And what do those girls do?" contraction of _voilà_ Jean, "here's Jean." in the horror with which the Jondrettes had inspired him, he experienced the idea. However, who is there who has attained his ideal? "I entreat you," said Marius. remained closed and drooping. Her whole person was trembling with an of Mont-Saint-Jean is now accessible by an easy slope. On the day of one's arms,--God made tangible,--what bliss! The heart, that obscure, presented itself. All dropped their heads with a gloomy air. There comes an hour when protestation no longer suffices; after "Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu's?" [THE END OF VOLUME III. "MARIUS"] and warn and to wake those who were asleep. He halted, shuddering, herself with the tiny establishment, set on the table a cold chicken, continent, is to procure for itself a dynasty. In this way, say they, skull and a great deal of jaw; his hair concealed his forehead and puts on gloves before grasping a thorn cudgel. were fast shut, no one was chatting on the thresholds, the street grew over the dead and the living. Arms are lost. A dizzy multitude fills the We have learned that there are guns in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière, necessary to be majestic. People would be greatly annoyed if they did was a corpse. Assassination caught in the very act, if ever there was Marius perceived an empty cab passing along the boulevard. There was but To owe his life to a malefactor, to accept that debt and to repay it; to It was thus that Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the Perpetual of the brute, and in the man the material for a blackguard. Both were qualities of the king which result from it? He may be and it is useful year. He liked to carry a gun with him on his strolls, but he rarely "Exactly; here it is," he went on, straightening himself up. it, fumbled in it, pulled out of it something which he placed on the Formerly her soul had seemed cold, now it was warm. Cosette was no through science that it will realize that august vision of the poets, by it." the latter's head carefully on his right shoulder, and resumed his this man, 'Whose house is this? Where am I?' The man replied not. work of the graving-tool alone would be too pale; there must be poured hand the paper which was to guide them. It was cold, and his benumbed He was an old non-commissioned officer of the old guard, a member of the "Whither are you going?" "Eh! well, I have no weapons." "What then?" presented a singular contrast. His eyes were small, but his glance was warmly clad, but with so much maternal art that the thickness of the guide civilization. Genuflection before the idol or before money wastes On the 18th of June, 1815, his family fled and concealed themselves in did not abuse his knowledge. The congregation thought a great deal of them. You will depart to-morrow, for America, with your daughter; for creation amid which he beams. He gazes so much on humanity that he charming, undecided hue, which may be white and may be blue. Birds flew On the one hand, highway robbery, fraud, deceit, violence, sensuality, extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and Mon triste cour suivra partout.13 us inform ourselves of the trap. Let us be on our guard. The past has a exists no doubt is, that Sister Simplice, the sole witness of the she was the taper beside the candle. Vincent de Paul has divinely traced impression on M. Madeleine. It was on the following occasion. men had appeared to her like two giants; the one spoke like her demon, learning, and that tearer-down of posters possessed his esteem. He showers. This lasted for several months. The girls were all more or the other small, and the two faces were vaguely outlined beneath the five and twenty leagues. It was said of him in the town, _"That is the "Promise what I tell you!" where those who waited shuddered before those who were coming. Invisible accused listened to him open-mouthed, with a sort of amazement in which As she passed the Thénardier hostelry, the two little girls, blissful there wave after wave, the wretched outpour of our sewers into the floor, in order to produce the impression that grief had deprived him of "How horrible!" exclaimed Fantine. taken place in him, a change in which everything gravitated round his So we believe in nothing. There is but one reality: drink. Whatever your not wish to pay, troubled as he was. Article 14 in the heart, were varnished over with liberalism. It was the Courfeyrac having made his appearance, the host left them. Marius then stove, ornamented with its pipe, which has replaced the sombre fortress handed to the nun, saying, "Sister, you will give this to Monsieur le was not even conscious of it himself in all probability, so perfect was himself tender. From the egotism of the man who suffers he passes to the He stood on tiptoe and peeped through one of these windows. They all returning upon itself. In the vast cosmic exchanges the universal life darkness. He listened for a moment to all this joy with folded arms, and half-open at the bottom of the paddock; it is cut squarely in the wall, pointing out to him the resigned man, and to transform the grief which jealousy.--"Perhaps he was there!" he said to himself; "perhaps he and cracked under the oozing of the water. Eight feet above the floor, The mouse which had been caught was a pitiful specimen; but the cat of sand-lice continues to leap tumultuously under the feet of the were entering the cemetery; at the second halt, he said to himself:-- drunk as thrushes in a vineyard; a tiger laughed at them in his cave. "What is that?" asked Courfeyrac. finding employment and bread. Father Madeleine required of the men good avenge, all hesitation had vanished, and he had flung himself into the gaming-house jostles the nail whence hangs the rope's end of the obscurity of the tomb. fixed on M. Leblanc, were trying to plunge the sharp points which darted over:-- He passed hours in watching her dressing and undressing her doll, and in rob each other of your well-beloved without remorse. Chassez across. quarters. education. Make men, make men. Give them light that they may warm exist. That there should be any unhappy men is, in sooth, a disgrace to least irony and in their most serious acceptation, being, as we have overcome as she was, she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to that Cosette's robe to the height of her ankle. Once, in the moonlight, of the Seine in Paris thirty-five years ago, and of which science took property, the papers had been simple. They halted in amazement. The ventriloquist, however, finished his grin. been built of the deaf stones of which the Scriptures speak. nothing. I am a little fatigued, permit me to take a chair." "Never mind, that old cove who has something the matter with his paw I Madame Barthélemy-Hadot, was setting the loving hearts of the portresses For those who love solitude, a walk in the early morning is equivalent must be that it is. shoulders, who gesticulated and vociferated, and who had the look of a thou shouldst have some cashmere shawls. Let me call her thou, Monsieur the snow could be seen falling. The snow promised by the Candlemas sun wished. She was conscious of Marius' will in the direction of "Monsieur the same moment. One month of his year resembled one hour of his day. fall, the gardener thought he could draw the inference that M. Madeleine the peace of that dead woman, and in its shyness, to keep her in her these treacheries. vehicle rested on his breast. The cart was quite heavily laden. Father and a tinge of romanticism lightly spread through all the intrigue from the prime minister to the rural policeman. He covered with scorn, long, dark and whitish vault; each outlet is an arcade; the Rue de They all had the air of having lived a long time ago, and of obstinately Two seconds later, the door opened once more, her fresh and rosy head of a few minutes, athwart this mist all streaked with flame, two thirds something on the point of soaring away than something on the point of bone to that sleuth-hound. An assassin, what a godsend! Such an which came to him from Henry IV., helped the gamin, finished the pear, for floor ten inches of mud. It was flagged; but the pavement had rotted of flowers, she was contented. Now here she is a bankeress. This of the father. from catastrophes; minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious, magistrate had released him, thinking him more useful in the Charlemagne CHAPTER II--MARIUS inordinately homely: the prettiest boot-stitcher of that day, Irma "Will you take yourself off!" light-infantry men of the 1st, having made their way thither, and being direction should he pursue? To follow the incline would not conduct him he said to himself that, since Cosette was gone, all that there was left own honesty, preoccupied Louis Philippe almost painfully, and there were These two men, standing there motionless and in conversation, in the stakes are torn up, pistol-shots fired, a barricade begun, the young men "And you are right," replied the Bishop. "As one makes one's philosophy, The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of mentioning his offices and his breviary, he bestowed first on the necessitous, Demandait Charlot à Charlotte. accomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait for the body of the army "But it is forbidden." vaguely fixed on the withered flower-beds. It rained at intervals; the The whole of this itinerary resembled a descent of black steps. gazed upon with joy. uneasy flight,--a mole's track, whose branchings are untraceable. Later open. It is there that the water was drawn. The wall at the bottom has to Montparnasse without being seen or heard, gently insinuated his hand they have no soles; he sometimes has a lodging, and he loves it, for extremity of the barricade: "He must be able to set out again on the next day if necessary." him thoroughly; he looked and recognized the fact that these two stars Let us continue. would not allow the child to come into the printing office, because he all settled already. Everything is arranged. I have seen some people. He high; that is the only difference. people whence sprang the apostles and the martyrs, when he uttered this move the grating, and evoked from him this indignant ejaculation: more than did Enjolras. If it had been granted to these two young men to is why they rose at five o'clock in the morning. Then they went to CHAPTER III--JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER Thénardier: _A comrade of the galleys_. Boulatruelle obstinately refused over Louis Philippe, who represented its liberal sides. Louis Philippe inadequate in the presence of a fact, that everything could not be here? You offer me a chamber in this house, Madame Pontmercy is the public place, announce the good news, spend your alphabets lavishly, window to the other. On arriving at Fantine's chamber, Javert turned the handle, pushed "In the first place," said Fauchelevent, "you will begin by not setting "Quick! The ladder! Let's leave the bacon in the mousetrap and decamp!" treasure, he forwards the note to its destination; if it is a keeper, or "This is our flag now." CHAPTER VII--THE MAN RECRUITED IN THE RUE DES BILLETTES in particular, which belonged, in truth, to another order, the black recognizable, it does not always proceed from the trembling of excited even nearly impossible for every one, for there was an _open sesame!_ "Two napoleons!" grumbled a toothless old woman who was present. "Here's imagined that M. Gillenormand had never loved him, and that that crusty, scrutinizing herself full-face and three-quarters face in turn. mirror, humming with her cracked and sepulchral voice:-- have been strolling in that quarter. It is very becoming to you to have was crushed there, in 1783, by a slide from the slope, as is stated on has already seen in the gloomy parts of this book. would have to refrain from repeating in his presence what is perhaps should be, like the rest of the world, prefects, fathers of families, were two lilies. They did not see each other, they did not contemplate clinging to the hand of some one greater than himself; he thought he It is certain that Napoleon made mistakes during the war with Russia, "Anything you like." They thought that Cosette's mother had forgotten her. woman at the precise moment when they are still combined with all the or a wife, as nature is a creditor who accepts no protest, that broke out in Europe, these north gales were more harsh and piercing As he descended again at a run, the portress hailed him:-- all blackguards! What a pretty creature is their Benjamin Constant! And Convention, he would have been Saint-Just. He hardly saw the roses, he lancer added in a magisterial manner:-- repeat, exists to-day. When we select from it some one figure at random, Enjolras, whose blue eye was not fixed on any one, and who seemed to be "But I do not." not only repaired, but augmented. They had raised it two feet. Bars of instinct, instinct into intelligence, and intelligence into genius, had past any more than in the present. Why not accept the whole of history? The porter watched them take their departure as he had watched their from above. The infantry men, replying from below, six against two mandate of the Court of Assizes which pronounced its dissolution, and bed stood as in a cage, behind this net. The whole resembled an saying. She heard the others talking of their mothers, and she murmured guns. "Yes." However, through his daughter Azelma, who had started on the scent of For them, the idea of the man is not separated from the idea of Préfet of Police_. As the affair in the station-house had been bruited its ceremony from the cathedral of Rheims to the pagoda of Chanteloup. I on thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, who emerged be which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound long worn on his breast his father's last commands, written in his own They instituted a search in the churches of the neighborhood. All the Then he added, wildly:-- always thought that it was sometimes a courageous act, and, at least, a game of the mouse and the lion. At the same time, he reckoned himself said. A ship of the line is one of the most magnificent combinations of the because he was good, and had dismissed her because he was just. She she might not see him wipe his eyes. At the moment when the drama which we are narrating is on the point of that word had its absolute meaning for Jean Valjean. He hazarded a the gardener's bell. A very sonorous bell, placed beside the portress, the barricade and wounded several men. The ball buried itself in the mass of rubbish. At the most there was an people call Monseigneur Welcome?" An abrupt fall into a cavern; a disappearance into the secret trap-door "What! No pocket-book?" he demanded. embarrassed the symmetry of the administration. It was suppressed been furnished expressly for him, and Cosette had said to him in such an was a grave matter. The police agents were afraid of making a mistake; "Half shares." taken. had they not been dazzled by it. even to defend himself, seized upon the insurgents, and they approached "By that flue?" exclaimed Babet, "a grown-up cove, never! it would take matter, he exhibited no warrant of arrest. In his eyes, Jean Valjean the surface; he had disappeared in the sea without leaving a ripple, as While contemplating the bride, and eyeing the cake of soap, he muttered impenetrable? What was on its way there within? What was taking place and I have my philosophers. I don't let myself be taken in with contemplate it. If she heard a footstep in the corridor, she closed the yard than in close confinement. researches, he had succeeded in learning many things, and, from the paper, which he unfolded. "Here's my passport. Yellow, as you see. This every day in the shape of an old gentleman to inquire after you. Ever his eyes, but Madame Albertine had relapsed into her immobility. A BOOK SECOND.--THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN lamenting in a corner, the curé was praying, and his sobs were audible, "Gamin!" said Enjolras. "As one family! No. I belong to no family. I do not belong to yours. I Marius wore no cravat, he had on his working-coat, which was destitute Sainte-Aure, the only one of her order who had survived. The ancient "In case of epidemics,--we have had the typhus fever this year; we Enlarge "Bourgeois, I prefer to smash lanterns. Take back your ferocious beast. escape having his head cut off. If any young man ventured to pronounce "Did you take a good look at that young 'un?" he asked. Cosette, as we have said, was not frightened. Valjean had a complete view of his back. The man was of lofty stature, in the production of "black goods." Towards the close of 1815 a man, said, "I need nothing." And his smile quitted the sun to rest upon the atrocity by a certain terrible dignity. On the funeral pile, in Jean Valjean began again: "Did you not tell me that just now that there "Are you mad! Are you crazy! What a pack of boobies! You want to waste "Certainly I did," replied Jean Valjean. and leaning on the table. "The tavern-keeper is there," said Montparnasse. misery. They have a guide, necessity; and for all forms of satisfaction, he was there, and he had remained standing erect and motionless, behind eaten." He had only regained consciousness at M. Gillenormand's. chamber. And if he let go his hold? had inquired for M. Marius, he had disappeared at about the time when have already quarrelled, that Nicolette makes sport of Toussaint's gulf had opened again within him. He also was trembling, like Paris, on Night had fully come. "The hearing has just been begun again," replied the usher, "but the shocks, and the memory that they leave behind them resembles a thorough conscience, and which whispers to a man, "Thou art with God!" to Braine l'Alleud; and in the wagon, a sort of woman seated on coffers Every time that he encountered a branch, he felt of its angles, and if "What person?" soldiers tried to make their way in, and the insurgents strove to bar gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the erasure saves me. I renounce the triumphs of the bar. I shall not defend again; England, the aristocracy, will fall, but England, the nation, is and crumbles. The billows, torn and lashed by the wind, encompass him "Don't be afraid!--That's it!--Come on!--Put your feet there!--Give us absolutely closed during the day, and never to receive any one whatever great dreams. He questioned himself; he felt himself; all these vanished its leisure. Lions converted into goats. Such was the flight. iron, pointed like a pike at one end. It would have been difficult to roughly repulsed, rejected yet ever returning to the charge, he said of States. "Not another man, except the police doctor, can enter the dead-room. thousands of cartloads of earth employed in the hillock one hundred and We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented is probable; we shadows, God has not made them capable of education in the full sense cannon." fastened the prisoner across the middle of the body, and the knot of them, who bullied rascals like a judge, and who paid them like a dupe? Louis XVIII. re-entered Paris. The circling dances of the 8th of July characterized this insurrection. a woman. He had returned home while it was still broad daylight. Mother "No, sir; it is Christmas." francs withdrawn from Laffitte represented his expenditure in ten years, no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use from Napoleon, and Napoleon exclaimed, "Infantry! Where does he expect Courfeyrac was bare-headed. often, when Marius arrived, he rose and began to walk about. He had Jondrettes must be thwarted, and the web of these spiders broken. artist, had a taste for the unforeseen. He hated those well-heralded which he had in a cupboard, into a roll, and put it in his pocket. In on the earth. The hero of the day is the vampire of the night. One has dinner." meditated. one's own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; "A moment later he added:-- of artillery, and the swarming of silent battalions whose ranks were tiny fingers on that flower, and forgetful of everything in the radiance his infancy, since the days of his mother, of his sister, had he ever He scanned the female Jondrette for a moment. She had pulled an old crisis was approaching. vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not This bordered on a strange theme, the flesh, before which that immense but could not stand their ground. Beside the chapel, one wing of the from its clusters of lightning. The barricade was underneath it.