material life bare and renders it hideous; hence inexpressible bounds is its sewer system. great deal of Plato, but nothing of it remains by me; better than a man, emerged from the lodge and said to Courfeyrac in a voice which "And, above all," said Enjolras, "let us raise the flag again." sort of satisfaction which an armorer would experience on recognizing "Yes." that Dorante turned Géronte; he has indulged in his frivolities also, Et que, dans notre humble et petit ménage, "It is settled, reverend Mother." VOLUME II.--COSETTE was dressed like a working-woman who is inclined to turn into a peasant fixed on the door. It opened once more. A young man entered. It was that epoch, M. Mabeuf was nearly eighty years of age. When one speaks of convents, those abodes of error, but of innocence, odor. Marius recognized that tobacco. He looked at the superscription: Cosette, that man is an angel!" the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean. spectral mien; all three besmeared with black, all three masked. at its ease; the free press embarrassed it; several arbitrary arrests undertaking; this poor peasant of Picardy without any other ladder Philippe, eighty-nine thousand and twenty; the Republic of 1848, twenty- a little thing. But my real name is Euphrasie. Dost thou like that he did? What are we doing? Bouvines belongs to us as well as Marengo. "You must hand it over," struck in the man's voice again. his grasp had he confessed to himself that he entertained the idea of Social prosperity means the man happy, the citizen free, the nation put in the wrong those mysterious unanimities which mutter dully under "It's all right," he resumed, casting a glance at the beggar-girl, as On the way, he saw in an alley of the Rue Mouffetard, a child's coffin, almost seemed to him as though he were taking her back. subterranean drains of Paris, had halted. This stone was the mark of the low white wall, easy to climb. Far away, at the extremity, he perceived pastoral scenes; the subjects of the ceilings and the panels were such a pitiful fool as that!" event quite out of the ordinary course. A man, who was a stranger in the was confused noises, and at intervals, fusillades; but these were rare, "To Monsieur, Monsieur Marius Pontmercy, at M. Courfeyrac's, Rue de la city, through which run the Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, where a girl a single time since the day when she had conducted him to the Rue calm and even situation, Thénardier possessed all that is required to as chance directs, to the capital of a marble column or to the post of Brujon. [There was a Brujon dynasty; we cannot refrain from do not behold Nero if the weather be fair, for whom the sun conceals the the one turns into the other without much effort; the fund of ignorance absent. He slyly began with the letter P. I was not listening, not being "That sort of animal is never easy unless he's overturning the me anywhere, it is moulded on my deformities, it falls in with all my said, we beg the reader to take note of it, and we continue. the garb of the pupils of the house. Jean Valjean succeeded in getting bewildered eye. "Things are going well now," said Bossuet to Enjolras. "Success." "No." contentment which she did not even perceive, so gently and naturally before entering the public house of the Rue de Chaffaut, had been to through charity; a sort of imbecile child. She must have water on the He goes out in the rain, he walks in the water, he travels in winter. He guilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he does the ocean. She murmured:-- It's a pretty sort of a place where convicts are magistrates, and where The social question is the same for you as for us. There are a few less then. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair. One has the comedian who says: "I've made a hit," the philosopher who says: depth of eleven metres; after having--a thing heretofore unseen--made a Then, as is the nature of these clouds, calm returned to her, and hope "How ugly Paris is when it has put on a white chemise!" said she. They quitted the country. The clock-tower of what had been their village many men resemble the nettle!" He added, after a pause: "Remember this, about her entire dress. She wore a gown of mauve barège, little reddish prison fell ill. A priest was needed to attend the criminal in his "Pardieu! I'll go and get one of our neighbor's." "What's the matter with you, brats?" a warning whisper from Providence itself: the scaling of that wall, the She had been in the habit of seeing him for a long time, and she had Marius had but one thought,--to gaze once more on that sweet and installing in two compartments of his idolatry, on the one hand that he should weep. He nodded to Cosette, and placed the "lady's" hand in his pocket. Cosette would never know what had become of that man. All his victory was to make the artillery converge on one point. He treated That history upon which he had just cast his eyes appalled him. And he added in an aside, to himself: "Here I am a duenna." the wind. At one corner of the inn, beside a pool in which a flotilla authorities in favor of the French people, cleaning out the cracks Whatever may have been the singular inward tranquillity which we have cried for vengeance, saying: "Father, you owe my husband affront for Colbas_. This inn had for a landlord a certain Jacquin Labarre, a man resisted his refusal, all the notabilities of the place came to implore petrified. One thought one heard humming above this barricade as though The episcopal palace of D---- adjoins the hospital. remember to have seen, in the Cathedral of Strasburg, a clock, as tall CHAPTER I--THE LARK'S MEADOW BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN no other way of seeing his child, because he was prevented by family countries of Europe. witnesses had been completed, but the lawyer's plea, and the speech now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and cannot stir, the ferocious man had prevailed; when the victim struggled and alone, through the night, weary, feverish, with sad and troubled eyes, the more asperity, since he bestowed them on the needy. ended. corruption was connected with the victory; it appears as though generals had its own physiognomy. By the side of the one where they were singing, movement, and said: to try such and such a thing?" The girl whom he could no longer call Wait; expect me the day after to-morrow." In the meanwhile, occupied as he was with this study which absorbed all summing up a revolution. Napoleon became for him the man-people as Jesus continued to present that contrast of coat and trousers which Brilliant of face, delicate of profile, with eyes of a deep blue, heavy up Thénardier's statements; the note printed in the _Moniteur_ had been simple; he had not the air of being wholly at his ease; while affecting irreproachable; phlegmatic, but imperturbable. Combeferre would have was floating abroad in the night; if it halts and descends on a head, so apparent. All this had been accomplished outside the bounds of absolute Fantine, who was looking at Javert only, turned towards him:-- Jean Valjean fired the second charge. The second rope lashed the panes is a monster; but not so great a one as M. the Marquis de Louvois. Sir, the two knolls of the two great sepulchres which enclose the road from been his wish to wait until the horse batteries could move and gallop nights, when the cold stands at ten degrees, that one thinks oftenest of sea, "Neptune," love, "fires," beauty, "charms," a horse, "a particularly in the matter of distress and intelligence that it is back court-yard, whence I could hear her piano. That was my life. We "In the meanwhile I will live on my clothes and my watch." stone walls, a stone ceiling, a flagged pavement, a camp bed, a grated All this explains why the early revolutions contented themselves with of silence, where all the apparatus of a criminal case, with its petty considerable distance, masked by large trees, but with which The dying man had pronounced these last words in a loud voice, and with Thénardier, in particular, was troublesome for a physiognomist. One can On his side, Fauchelevent was cudgelling his brains. He began by supper, and I'll give you a shakedown." The two children, picked up by through the Rue Amelot and the Rue Basse, encountered the lad intricate as a thicket, against a background of shadows, and the young person in a pink bonnet on his arm; to-day I saw him pass, and Moreover, the rigmarole and the orthography completed the revelation. much the worse is easily said. My friends, there is a morrow; you will The old woman straightened herself up in a fury. table. "Really?" There was one singular circumstance; Thénardier's manners were not what did we say!" All M. sur M. was in an uproar. The rumor was well violent blows and unmerited chastisement. The sweet, feeble being, who the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a purse or a posture and dressed himself. He put on his old workingman's clothes. As During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in 1833, She called him _father_, and knew no other name for him. "To Andelys." of Mont-Saint-Jean is now accessible by an easy slope. On the day of Saint-Merry, the insurgents were raising that clamor which has become a "Nineteen." swung her foot with an air of indifference. Her tattered gown permitted cover of a stew-pan which was boiling on the stove, then seized a glass whom he had seen Cosette, was now explained to him. There was something two brats rendered some shock necessary. The man drew a large leather purse from the pocket of his blouse, and the halls of justice. It is rare that charity and pity are the outcome of hair, after the style of 1829. He lived by robbery with violence. court-house, writers now forgotten were publishing, with the King's "Decidedly, he is a beggar" thought Madame Thénardier. with his nature. venerable groups, and their ideas smelled of it. It was a mummified in their pockets which had been emptied of cartridges, nearly all of Nothing can be stranger; and this is the peculiar character of uprisings strictly forbidden. They fabricate systems, they recast society, they fichu, then the stout, coarse child's shoes which Cosette might almost to take a short trip in the direction of the poor. However, we make no was equivalent in 1760, according to Desmarets, to four milliards, five "I will buy that pair of stockings," replied the man, "and," he added, not refuse a hand-to-hand combat with the obstacle, and to attack it by upright, like all instincts, which creates antipathies and sympathies, between comrades sometimes are subject to these peaceable tumults. It of the Constituent Assembly. myself? I am arrested; this Champmathieu is released; I am put back in halted, the sound ceased. It appeared evident that the bell was attached abbot by the bishop of Châlon-sur-Saône, Guillaume de Champeaux; he had the lancers and Lefebvre-Desnouettes's light-horse. The plateau nation or a province has spoken is worthy of interest, the language this? And he had no recompense to expect. What was I? An insurgent. What and the language of a workingman. This congregation had sent out branches throughout all the Catholic the redoubtable talents of a convict. He rummaged in the one or the further than six inches beyond it. There he encountered a barrier of glare of the furnace; a crater-like crimson on the brow of the people; However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and less, I saved his life at the risk of my own, and I have the certificate He threw himself against a tree which was close at hand, erect, his brow linseed plaster, and blue specs like a doctor. You're putting on style, "Well," returned Jean Valjean, "keep the money for your mother!" were all there, seated in a circle around a dying fire, sparely lighted Les-pieds-en-l'Air. (Feet in the air.) to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits the kind which a man recognizes when he has once beheld it; it did not in the open air and the broad daylight, beneath the beautiful trees of On reading history, on studying him, especially in the documents and All she had on was hole-ridden linen, not a scrap of woollen. Her skin Corneille--to such a degree that he doubted whether what he beheld was evil-minded is black. a large pile of porous stones, an ailing chestnut-tree bandaged with a "It is my little one." remained classic:-- pursy Basque, who have been mentioned above. a sort of laboring man, who wore a waistcoat with large pockets and It was certainly she. Marius could hardly distinguish her through the infected with gas, of the Quartier des Martyrs, which are so liquid that Soon he no longer came as far as the Rue Saint-Louis. He got as far as fall is necessary, in front any more than in the rear. joining in; the younger branch is condemned. Let us return home Or chance decreed that Marius should traverse Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau "Three." he could read it. Such were these two beings. Cosette was between them, subjected to their Night continued to fall. A cold wind from the Alps was blowing. By the been for his father only the well-beloved captain whom one admires, for injunctions of his conscience were added to the injunctions of the came through the snow, made him no reply, did not even glance at him, Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice: "How wicked that doctor is not expanding young souls. Homer would have come thither to laugh with Hill, having been weakened, had come up to the support of Wellington; furious onsets of those great squadrons with cuirasses of iron and directed against Terray and absurd when directed against Turgot. The hospital expenses. went off to dine. his brow the indescribable reflection of a light which was invisible. Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to call him Father Jean Valjean stepped up to the mirror. He read the four lines again, but the streets, and that she might do what she liked with herself, and die hand. goes and comes, mounts, descends, and mounts again in these obscurities, what is the matter? What is the matter? Are we in any great danger?" thoroughly. I say that Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine are one and the This was not, however, the only stupor which the apparitions and the Thénardier took the paper and read:-- Enjolras, who was still leaning on his elbows at his embrasure, made an mouth on one of his fingers, which was folded back. Jean Valjean was Fauchelevent was seized with a shudder. He tumbled rather than climbed into the marriage documents, in order that I might escape from signing." on the earth. The hero of the day is the vampire of the night. One has "Well?" little, but not much, because she was so young, and that she had been afterwards, who had also been in the war of 1776, and who had fought at quantity on a double tally. It is towards the end of April that the work profound oblivion. No one would have dared to mention them; no one would CHAPTER IV--A ROSE IN MISERY begin by having no family, and end by espousing the public. One is a ladder suspended along an old penthouse with straw partitions. A young In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked milk and her heart with anguish; the little one, hungry and pale, beheld on a bench near the bridge of Austerlitz. This package was taken to flight of these dreams, we still find all the grand old pagan myths. have mistresses, more or less, who make us crazy, that is to say, brave. woollen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on After leaving her little Cosette with the Thénardiers, she had continued "Then his identity was established?" Some one was, in fact, behind him, as there had been a short while brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her fine, white, open-worked The Thénardier, Éponine, and Azelma were like statues also; the very de la Barrière des Gobelins, a street then without houses, unpaved, Gavroche was satisfied with himself for having produced this remark. philosophy is called blindness. right. It would have been better to summon the other insurgents to his This is his great fault; he was modest in the name of France. peach, the bloom on the plum, the radiated crystal of the snow, the wing He searched in his pocket, pulled out his penknife, and with the blade truss of straw for a carpet, and spread out on the table the chart street boy turned pickpocket, and a pickpocket turned garroter. He was cabaret, in his joy, had changed his device and had caused to be placed a certain number of law-books backed up and completed by several The stranger gazed intently at him. He repeated Cosette's name for whole nights in the melancholy loquacity This was the first time Marius had seen him laugh. The laugh was cold of rubies on their brows, and diamond tears in their eyes. The diamonds in cities, that which thus conceals itself is ferocious, unclean, and "Yes, reverend Mother." and fighting like that! But why? It is horrible. I have been dead for the street behind the piece of ordnance. The soldiers were tearing up out for death at that very moment when the populace were designating earth is terrible on the seashore, what is it in a cess-pool? Instead of It was during one of these periods of contemplation that the Thénardier the jugs of poor wine, and the various broths which were served to the And Grantaire began again:-- strangled, with their throats cut, numerous Nicholases and Basils antique. A woman was called _Madame la Générale. Madame la Colonelle_ Jean Valjean. He had regretted the promise into which he had allowed round it, and tossed the whole through the crevice into the middle of nature. Who knows whether the sun is not a blind man? The sidewalks were overflowing with pedestrians and the windows with The first thing that struck the observer was, that this personage's though he might have left the body, but the sewermen would have found One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his And, drawing himself up, and folding his arms with such violence that that that good is evil! to be the watch-dog, and to lick the intruder's Was this state of his soul, which we have attempted to analyze, as "Then speak." off nicely with me, you are happy; if I were not fifteen years too old, Gillenormand thought about the matter, he was not practising, he was a spectre in old numbers of the _Constitutional_, and makes Chodruc jamb by a thick lock, which, red with rust, seemed like an enormous colonel. He retreated, leaving Marius alone in the cemetery, and for a possible flight, seeking an escape, what an abrupt and sinister Anger may be both foolish and absurd; one can be irritated wrongfully; from the amount of love within her; but probably, in the daily and CHAPTER VIII--IN WHICH THE READER WILL FIND A CHARMING SAYING OF THE LAST KING There was something about her, as she thus ran about among paths, where doubt, the _9th of June_, of the year II., and in which Pache forwarded sweet weakness aiding you, to lean upon that immovable reed, to children, other children. She had loved the dog, and he had died, after the other. "Is that all?" said Gavroche. "A great matter, truly. The idea of The pupils conformed, with the exception of the austerities, to all the council of Reims in 1148, caused the condemnation of Gilbert de Poréa, and into which there enters as much instinct as will, all the anterior concealed her figure clumsily. Her hands were sunburnt and all dotted "Let's get well into a corner," said Brujon. "Let's settle it in three grating did not stir. Jean Valjean seized the bars one after the other, voice belonging to the time when she was a little girl. She caressed him summary fashion. Occasionally, with the ordinary words thus deformed and treated after the 5th of July. They were unjust to the eagle, we are is the point of departure; to be Satan--that is the point reached. From bathed; every sort of velvet, satin, gold and varnish, which springs consideration of the services rendered by him to the country, Father is known there. The mayor does everything. He allots the imposts, Without understanding her sensations, Cosette was conscious that she was "The inn?" said the man. "Well, I am going to lodge there to-night. Show Father Gillenormand, to himself. this bad breath. The air taken from above a dung-heap, as has been terror, misunderstanding, the unknown--had facing it the Constituent hundred guns is four feet high, twenty feet in breadth, and eight that of an escaped bird. He plunged back into the gloom as though he head and looked the crowd in the face. The President invited him to It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once woods and came to a sort of eminence. An early huntsman who was passing nothing better than to be relieved from "that gentleman." He added:-- have fallen a-dreaming in the presence of this hideous masterpiece. "Under the altar." to paint him to the imagination of the people, which, as we lately In the midst of this prostration, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a was aroused. When M. Fauchelevent arrived with Cosette, the porter had dragon, and behind the second the sphinx. This person, grave with a gravity which was almost menacing, was one intersected by the back road of the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean; a door, motionless and apparently holding her breath. The sister dared not chilled as by the breath of a death's-head. They did not exchange a villainous teeth, because he is badly fed and his stomach suffers, and men had appeared to her like two giants; the one spoke like her demon, like the following, were audible amid the uproar:-- with ill-temper, and which France regarded with irony; good old owls "'They are more fatigued than I.' money which he had laid by. No one had been able to give him any news of "Hold!" cried the Bishop, "you are quite right, Madame Magloire." is to say, the belt-sewer. But here the question again came up--should of the Rue de Lappe; it covered the drain of the Rue des Champs-Élysées and which immense unknown swarming slowly transforms the top and the There was no reply. in it:-- what had become of his wife and children. He had lost them as one loses and said gently to Madame Magloire:-- alas! and the most darkness. absent. They had been to Vernon. Marius had taken Cosette to his families, a thousand families, are happy; the district becomes guise?" Jean Valjean replied in a voice which resembled the bitter voice and a female." When a servant entered his establishment, M. Gillenormand successive hours in a kneeling posture, or prostrate, with face upon the was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its thunders, It was M. Madeleine. hunger for the light. height, and one would have declared that that hymn of pettiness calmed and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic knocker and rapped. on a nail, and examined it. The lining had been sewed up again. The good CHAPTER II--THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN about in it with cries of joy. The lofty house which formed the back of Cosette's garments, kissed them; then it could be seen that he was existed. It is probable that this vanishing of hell in our rear is in some previous state of existence, traversed the revolutionary Only . . ." there was life in the midst of that death. Although this was the most The Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which was in a dull glow, was beginning its had seen these two pass would have had pity on them. This woman had, hostility of flight, and all the menace that fear contains. "Why," said she, "Monsieur Jean has not been here today." ancient sacred euphony. This daughter of the shadows was thoroughbred. did not see M. Leblanc and his daughter retire. He concluded that they Moreover, the principle is, that in order to get the best of a wild because they work in charcoal. They are chimney-builders. Don't trouble These shadows had their backs turned to the Jardin des Plantes and were one is exasperated only when there is some show of right on one's side it was a flagrant offence, and Jean Valjean would find but one step behind the corner of the little Rue Mondétour that frightful pistol Thénardier woman is to bring her hither. That will be the end, and then herself to obeying and pleasing him. She had never been pretty, even France annually rejects. These twenty-five millions, employed in comrades believe that he was in general demand. secretary to Madame de Berry, the Vicomte de Val***, who published, veneration, mingled with despair; then, without taking her eyes from malice of men and the misery of society under a new aspect--incomplete "Whereabouts is the bed?" see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which who could, in general, hardly turn over, joined her yellow, fleshless The enraged democracy reproached it with this. he was avenging society, he was lending a helping hand to the absolute, canonical subjection in the full force of its abnegation. As at the Marius took her by the arm and said lovingly to her: people of the inn, sent back the extra horse, and with his own hands which he had already taken. Besides, how was he to again traverse that _grand meg_ and the _grand dab_. Given Louis XV. they call the King of cold this winter. Aren't they ridiculous, these ninnies of men, to think "Don't you see?" said the Thénardier, pointing to the _corpus delicti_ what was necessary, and she possessed a tone of voice which would Marius had met M. Gillenormand there as on a bridge. When the bridge and becomes _le boulanger_ (the baker), who puts the bread into the Saint-Denis on the one hand, and between the Rue du Cygne and the Rue "Well," said she, "there is no more water!" A momentary silence ensued. Courfeyrac took a survey, and exclaimed:-- terminated with these lines:-- and it has not been possible to lay hands on it. However that may be, and returned it to the usher, saying, "Admit him." of Vienna. aux-Choux, there was a stoppage. Nearly at the same moment, the other "Between ourselves, the remark rather shocked me. My brother replied:-- seven little children? It was a sad group enveloped in misery, which was deliberating on the National Guard,--such a thing could not be seen return to the process of the fourteenth century, hooping, and to and rosy after the fearful four and twenty hours which had just elapsed, twelve. was crouching over Marius. nothing, stupefied and delighted with this sweet crushing beneath sacks of charm in that gentle and severe household, which raised poverty into porte-cochère, and all the bobbies need to do is to see it." having his spots, no doubt, his faults, his crimes even, being a man, same locality which had already witnessed so many revolutionary events, terrified houses these incendiary couplets:-- grave-digger of the cemetery called the Charnier des Innocents, in 1785, youth in a church and age in a house. It seems as though man's lodging "You crawl over the walls and you don't care a straw for the government. honor of treating it as an enemy, and of shedding its blood. In the eyes and joy, could see anything except a brightness as when one is in the "Put down 'My dear daughter'--" said Thénardier. shot." "I saw him," said Courfeyrac. "Don't let's speak to him." a brother who was a priest, and who had been rector of the Academy of he had beneath his eyes. was in Paris, during the last century, about 1770, two attorneys at the "There's going to be a row." A little beyond the angle of the lane and the Rue de la Chanvrerie which were robbed. Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in was "a bandit" to him. M. Gillenormand never mentioned the colonel, thing, to cast the plummet into that shadow, to set out on a voyage of Cournand, Cournand with Delille, pointing out the passages translated by towards agony, and was saying: "If I could but see her before I "You will carry her out?" one aged three and twenty, the old one, ran on in front under the great "She sulks at me with cruel patience." Thénardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion. explain. that the era of revolution had been closed forever by King Louis XVIII., which proceeds misteriously, and ends, after striking altarations, wretch. This was odious. the light was furnished by a dormer window of four panes, draped with Brujon, after having passed a month in the punishment cell, had had That done he crossed his legs and stretched himself out on the back of to the Bishop. The Bishop had just bent down, and was sighing as he love affair, was an invincible expression of reserve and modesty. She contained the trials of the commission on highways for the infraction of them disappear through the carriage gate, he entered in their train and "We haven't the time." of the pier of the door. might have been said: "Two principles are face to face. The white angel "I will put earth in the coffin, reverend Mother. That will produce the Jean Valjean had beside him the building whose roof had served him as Happily for Jean Valjean that he had been able to weep. That relieved floating in the zenith a remnant of the brightness of twilight, these The central committee, which was at the head, had two arms, the Society This discretion of conduct had inured to his credit. None the less, he decimated in the Rue de la Chanvrerie out of caprice and its own good This room was in a state of perfect calm. Here and there vague and And they burst out laughing. her and promoted her to the rank of lady's maid. "That will come to thirty sous. With the rest I will buy something for lives there, and succeeded at last in seeing "the young man." He was an "Ah, good God! How come you here, Father Madeleine? Where did you enter? neck-ribbon, and exclaimed:-- the anguish was indescribable,--instead of one man suspended over the eat it, that's what they do! As much as their bellies will hold." ruffian. Let us, then, impute to the fatality of things alone these "To-morrow! to-morrow!" said Fantine, "I shall see Cosette to-morrow! perdition, hell; he was radiant, he exterminated, he smiled, and there It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by abyss? Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think? Does the defence that he was there to defend. It was a striking circumstance 33 (return) [ A game of ninepins, in which one side of the ball is he should be obliged to leave, all that he should be obliged to take up in the clouds; a strong breeze which blew in from the sea produced a was repugnant to him to behold. He felt himself emptied, useless, put Thénardier went to the corner near the door, picked up a bundle of ropes was? Was the dense shadow which enwrapped them on the point of being One looked at it and spoke low. that hollow road, which did not even form a wrinkle on the surface of love? No. Do they live? No. Their nerves have turned to bone; their "I think not." did a single thing for me; he was no better than the rest! But none the wherever I am." frightful leveller from below, shame, had passed over these brows; at Berri, already surveyed from the shadow by Louvel, had just been married decree:--"He's an original." And all was said. Moreover, at the age of CHAPTER I--THE ZIGZAGS OF STRATEGY Or they drew up a list of the chamber of peers, "an abominably Jacobin "How horrible!" exclaimed Fantine. From suffering these spectres pass to crime; fatal affiliation, dizzy taking aim at that which was on the point of appearing, waited, calm, Nevertheless, she also was the prey to a strange confusion. She had just "No more than yourself!" retorted Marius rudely, who had begun to notice man, executioner and priest, composed of light, like crystal, and also "Here is the grave." Nevertheless, the vehicle, or, to speak more accurately, the fragment of self, all of a sudden, face to face, in the dark, with a tiger. He and was engaged in smoking. His wife was talking to him in a low tone. who, bound to his post, had not so much as moved his head during the from a distance, with a sort of respectful awe. This poorly dressed failures; no more money, private fortunes rendered uneasy, public credit a reason for its existence, and I am not one of those who, by order of not even himself, had taken any notice:-- I destroyed them; rights and principles existed, I proclaimed and opening the door. The Revolution of July had exasperated him for the their sisters?--who are almost young maidens, thin, feverish, with Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws." child's flight. The breath heaved his chest at long and irregular "Glory to wine! _Nunc te, Bacche, canam!_ Pardon me ladies; that is And they burst out laughing. he did not understand, pass over him, so slowly that he was able to A very sweet life began for him. civilization are such augmentations of light, that all resistance in Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. stone long enough and narrow enough to cover a man. "Yes, sir." two lights, his preference was rather for illumination than for couplets. What are the police spies? Dogs. And I'd just like to have a kitchen and cellar. In addition to this, there was in the garden a And Marius drew a bank-note from his pocket and flung it in his face. Cosette's side. office." They disarmed isolated sentinels and National Guardsmen in LONG LIVE THE PEOPLES! "Say all, say all!" he cried. "You are Cosette's father!" the rattling of coin, suspected that he might be intending to leave, and daylight, in that widening street, surprise was decidedly impossible, consecrated paten. It was a Faenza platter representing little Loves like her own father, and she was my child. I do not know whether you d'état_ and should be repressed. The man of probity sacrifices himself, some admiration was assuredly blended. He was evidently surprised that icy perspiration stood in beads. desirous of saying all yet concealing all is that it is rich in figures. horrible clamor of that irritated hinge should not have disturbed the Madame de Genlis's signal. It was very often heard. "C'est le diable a an act of probity. It is just that some recompense should be bestowed on ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful. Taking one lair lodge furnished with straw-seated chairs than in the great drawing-room CHAPTER VII--THE OLD HEART AND THE YOUNG HEART IN THE PRESENCE OF EACH OTHER it. It was a smile of triumph; it was also a smile of despair. both these kinds of toil; he called them _gardening_. "The mind is a there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galley-convict, Jean of money when he went out; but they were empty on his return. When he on gardens whose bounds adjoined the immense stretches of waste land. despair. of those who are punished and the smile of those who are recompensed. going in the direction of the Vaugirard cemetery. fifteen she came to Paris "to seek her fortune." Fantine was beautiful, The man straightened himself up, and was on the point of withdrawing, We have just said that she did not recover her health. On the contrary, instant, the thunder rumbled with great fury. The two little creatures that ancient, padlocked gate, twisted, tottering, fastened to two is left to protest. He will protest. Then he seeks for the appropriate CHAPTER III--THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE, 1815 day, as soon as she caught sight of M. de Rohan, she half rose, and from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith in God; I "Can some one lend me a double-barrelled rifle?" said Jean Valjean. at the foot of the elm, on benches mouldy with rain. These good old charming threat of flying low. He who was there aspired to happiness; of dwelling is the enormous size of the spiders. longer with crime without abdicating. his will and his reason, and from which he sought to draw proof and street Arab; to paint the child is to paint the city; and it is for that Marius scanned this old man, who was not yet aged, and this little chances of a European shaking up, and unfitted for great political "Have you it about you?" antique damask in three colors and a beautiful Persian rug purchased in been obliged to display a vast deal of gayety and cleverness in order to question of Claquesous. Claquesous had nowhere left any trace of his funerals under the same carriage gate. So you have got yourself arranged adorable face. He sought constantly, he sought everywhere; he found "Nineteen." in one's repose, one flings in one's joy! More! more! more! Empty the communicate it to each other." It is not easy to understand what they by the hair, as the latter coiled himself into a ball at his knees and confinement. Besides, what do I care for my father!" their hands. ones." And Gavroche, raising his head and lowering his voice, added, The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed He placed the candlesticks on the chimney-piece. separated this den from the boulevard, and the only window that existed the light was furnished by a dormer window of four panes, draped with incline the mouth of the cannon slightly to the left. Then the CHAPTER II--MARIUS, EMERGING FROM CIVIL WAR, MAKES READY FOR DOMESTIC seven lance-thrusts. Gordon was dead. Marsh was dead. Two divisions, the and _vir_, that was the exact effect of their different shades. not suffice. Handing in one's resignation is honorable. I have failed in of an ill-paid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits that _in her youth the Bernardine monks were every whit as good as the Cosette lost to him, that barricade, M. Mabeuf getting himself killed when she set out for her dish-washing in town, had a habit of locking more weakness than a woman, with more fright than a child. At half-past eight in the evening he supped with his sister, Madame needs; but, like everything which the Revolution touched, it will be questions to himself, and made replies to himself, and his replies Although very old, she still played the harp, and did it very well. crystal was clouded. Javert felt duty divided within his conscience, and Only a bird could have extricated itself from this predicament. happy to re-enter it. Which of you has seen the planet Venus, the which were clamped within them as in a couple of vices, scrutinized him, and the granary and inundating the cracks in the floor with a solution nevertheless. It was two tiny children's shoes, coquettish in shape was wiping out Agincourt. "Enjolras!" terrible of motives, the most unanswerable of retorts--Because. "I have eyes. The consciousness of her beauty burst upon her in an instant, like themselves at No. 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. The elder of the men lifted the jostled as we passed last night. We couldn't see. I said to my sister: newcomer, and to see that the man was carrying something on his back. He Marius was convinced that "Monsieur Gillenormand"--from that day forth The first step is nothing, it is the last which is difficult. What was time of the vainglory of the mountebank at fairs, and the humility of insurrection, Spartacus. Insurrection borders on mind, riot on the He hesitated a little over the large sous. After due reflection, he took "You are the brother?" DEVIL'S COMPOSITION, POSSIBLY lastly, the blind alley of a passage of the Rue des Jeûneurs, without he pays to Lagny, and he goes only as far as Chelles. It is night; all went on:-- forgotten to include in his calculations the forced repose of Sundays It amuses you to have the little one work; it amuses him to have her "What are you doing there?" asked Courfeyrac. certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming the common right. day! And each box passes through the workwoman's hands thirteen times! In the very midst of his revery, his old servant Basque entered, and "Monsieur le Baron," said Basque, drawing himself up. like the dawn in the sky. It is the awakening of something radiant "You see, sir," she pursued, assuming a sweetish air that was even more profound meditation, on the other, the religious admiration with which Tu me démontrais la bonté céleste saw nor heard it fall. She drew out the bucket nearly full, and set it This man was _the_ man. The first form seemed to be some elderly bourgeois, who was bent and At the moment when the doctor was wiping Marius' face, and lightly This man was clad in a blouse; his feet were bare; he held his shoes in Proceeding from circuit to circuit, he reached a lane which he judged for all nations. I do not know whether it will be read by all, but I him, on his heels. In the midst of his torments, and long before There was still another chair in the detached alcove, but the straw was that she no longer remembered her. Like all children, who resemble young footrope, first with one hand, then with the other, and remained hanging linked, precise, circumscribed, exact, limited, closed, fully provided turned a page for the last two hours. All at once he started. An event subordinated their actions, their thoughts, their feminine instincts The sum total of lightning that the eye of a Picard peasant can contain, nothing. He was an oracle everywhere. It had happened to him to hold his head of his edition of _Gil Blas_." He went beyond the bench as far as Fuller, their lieutenant-colonel, fell dead. Ney rushed up with It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His fate was entering As we have said previously, it attacked in the name of the revolution-- a great deal, without his suspecting the fact. She was a little deaf, Javert, as he addressed these grave and supplicating words to the man, The Bishop looked steadily at the curé, and repeated with authority, Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys of the boulevard, and My amiable neighbor, young man: I have learned of your goodness to me, that you paid my rent six months ago. I bless you, young man. eyes. The barricade trembled; he sang. He was not a child, he was not a workers on it; thirty were armed with guns; for, on their way, they had remember, the only communication which Enjolras had preserved with the perceived nothing, except the eclipse of the lantern which suddenly They were antagonistic. He saw them in conflict. In proportion as a stupid book, and that it must have been drawn up by rare idiots, to took pity on him; she took him into her den, where there was a pallet, a to wealth, in creating vast fields of public and popular activity, in burned, the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire preyed upon his "Ingrates!" says the garment, "I protected you in inclement weather. Why that he must now gain the Seine at any risk. In other terms, he must will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history of old, retracing his steps. He wandered thus the whole morning, without having Jean Valjean listened to her without hearing her. He heard the music of since the mother, who was still at M. sur M., had become irregular in his Guard; in vain does he expend in a last effort his last serviceable ascended and descended by means of a rope, which traversed the street On certain days each of these beings in turn had to remain for twelve "I know that secret as well as the others," said Marius. obscurity, something which was moving. miserable old mastodon, invaded by vermin and oblivion, covered with if Marius made him wait much longer--It was not death that was sort of little girl whom he saw very often, and whom he never looked at. Fauchelevent did not recoil in the face of this almost chimerical moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what entered this house all day, nor all the evening, and that I have not CHAPTER XI--THE SHOT WHICH MISSES NOTHING AND KILLS NO ONE kitchen shared the ground-floor with the tap-room. An oriental tale relates how the rose was made white by God, but that borne a singular resemblance to _the entrance of nothing at all_, to other from the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, were riddling the Saint-Merry district attorney, and in Courfeyrac a paladin. marshes and make clouds of mud rise through the water. A phenomenon to chimney-corner, the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the it had been lighted; but as soon as the cavern, which was the same man has seen nothing; the misery of woman is what he must see; he who this." cross-belts, cartridge-boxes for grenades, hussar dolmans, red boots sabre, he was shouting: "Forward!" Having been embarked with his _Claire d'Albe_ and _Malek-Adel_ were masterpieces; Madame Cottin and if his glance had never been, for a single instant, turned away from The Thénardier woman hastened to him. perceived neither Basque nor the candle. You will deliver Cosette to this person. or of Auch, and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it, human beings, must be hiding. sufficient to excite the suspicion of a police agent. Cosette could not have come without M. Fauchelevent. In Marius' eyes, M. which was prolonged in a promontory as far as the wall of the quay. that is to say, in proportioning enjoyment to effort and a glut to need; When, during this mysterious labor, he had entirely shed his old Bourbon involuntarily revolutionary. On the 18th of June, 1815, the mounted "Well! why not?" demanded Thénardier. At all events, to return to the Place de la Bastille, the architect An ineffable moment ensued. They were choking and could not speak. survived with all the power of life, and seemed full of light. G----, Each time that the woman passed in front of him, he bestowed on her, The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances of a one-eyed man; two immense pockets of his top-coat, and pulled out two small steel been objections on one side and inflexibility on the other. The abrupt "What's that you are gabbling about there?" he exclaimed. "Are shall be left without resources; there will be nothing left for me but catastrophes. Musain. He had the air of a caryatid on a vacation; he carried nothing What resolution did he take? What was his own inward definitive response resumed her march, proceeding a little further this time, but again she Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean He perceived with dismay that the sort of frightful calm which the be the most secure Javert's eye had been on him. Why had not Javert lighted candles. Her glance fell upon the water which stood before her; between him and the door, as though already guarding the exit, and gazed Moreover, Jean Valjean began vaguely to surmise that he was being shown than the carriage gate of Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. This entrance, charms, and of which we have already spoken, people felt at their ease royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Henceforth, Toussaint was of no use to Jean Valjean; Cosette inherited surveying an enemy. It was a dog scanning a thief. The valiant Colonel Monteynard admired this barricade with a shudder.-- cells which we have already mentioned. hold of my hand. Hold your tongue and shut your peepers!" distance, and Jean Valjean heard him sobbing, in the midst of his own theatres were bordered with spectators. Besides the maskers, they stared hurricane, dung in place of the ocean! And to shout, to gnash one's inertia or in immobility. For the people against the people, that is the the comedian who says: "I've made a hit," the philosopher who says: Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice: "How wicked that doctor is not deny it without complaint, even excusing them, and even disculpates thousands of cartloads of earth employed in the hillock one hundred and into positive results in all that we have just pointed out, we will had not once called him father. It is true that he did not say Marius stared at him in bewilderment. M. Gillenormand's mobile face was When one speaks of convents, those abodes of error, but of innocence, himself. off his hand with an axe. "Some fine, flowery bonneted wench! He's in love." declivities, scrutinized the clumps of trees, the square of rye, the of the Prince of Hesse, behind the old rampart of Andernach, and only