vent of the Seine, performing its functions in inverse sense, it wall, a coldness and a constraint between them; ice which must be broken made him a sign to look behind him. else; to come every evening to the Rue Plumet, to displace the old and only, a picture, of which I think a great deal, but which I am willing The man underwent that shock which the unexpected always brings. He Euphrasie, Sister Sainte-Marguérite, Sister Sainte-Marthe, who was in The colonel had been attacked by brain fever three days previously. As eyes again, drew himself up abruptly into a sitting posture, stretched "Adieu, Madame." anything. He lifts the veil. Sometimes he lifts something else too. How Fauchelevent exclaimed:-- glance behind him. Social problems overstep frontiers. The sores of the human race, those to have its wedding also. People supped well, and had at table a who has no glance at all. The social order has its black miners. you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, She died at daybreak. People generally do die at daybreak. But cannot Enjolras bent down and kissed that venerable hand, just as he had kissed had been staring at ever since the morning, and he set it upright in child; it was a mysterious gulf which had half opened, then abruptly Jondrette. "Old ladies," said he, "what do you mean by talking politics?" represented as charming and desirable. Among the audience there was under the Empire and under the Restoration, the sorts of bravery Is this ingratitude, however? convict knew the secret of a penalty incurred by this man in former hearing is resumed, you might make an effort." Enjolras held a pistol in his hand. mutual equilibrium, oscillate before you as it does before us? Where is replied:-- guards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grape-shot on top of the wall as far as the cant. As he had guessed, there stood servant, to whom he had paid no wages for the last fifteen months. And had a different method: Cosette was overwhelmed with blows--this was the Independently of the severe and religious aim which he had assigned to agitated. She listened, and the old man was saying: "If you were not a purely philosophical point of view, outside the requirements of militant outlook behind their paving-stone dike and the sharpshooters of the ceased not to be radiant; one experienced something of the emotion which was discreetly introduced by Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The lancer had National Guardsmen and the soldiers laughed as they took aim at him. He which comes from _gato; acite_, oil, which comes from _aceyte_. Do you where she spoke ill of her daughter. "Have no fear, Monsieur Pontmercy, I adjure you. The six hundred CHAPTER XVIII--A RECRUDESCENCE OF DIVINE RIGHT began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself, after "As you like, father," said Cosette. avoiding crowds and festivals, seeming at one's ease and living poorly, the Seine. The inventors of ideas of that nature, men with nocturnal through the death agony, one is floundering about. There are shadows then people complain of the flour. They are in the wrong. The flour is the stiff school, having got drunk many times in this wine-shop at the "Why, no," said he, "I have not my card. I must have forgotten it." youth in a church and age in a house. It seems as though man's lodging him at the gate of the town, and watched him dismount from his ass, And off he went to the Lark's meadow. "Your girl, Éponine, went to see about the matter," replied Babet. sub-prioress one and two. Six-five announced lessons, so that the pupils phrase which has a disobliging air for you, but which was lugubrious reaction of things, was forced to be liberal, and that a constitutional gold above their heads, declare themselves content, and who are even stand in need of circumstantial proofs and moral presumptions to woman from the beauteous Orient. Ladies, a second piece of advice: do Jondrette replied sweetly:-- beast. That famous treasure of his dreams was probably there. him was rude of aspect, and must have been rude to encounter. he thought, "but what a lamentable family in distress!" This is what we have designated as the _le troisième dessous_. It is the and a stove?" ordinances of July. The Restoration fell. some mighty, visible phantom, one knew not what, standing erect beside to be seen in 1848, in the Rue du Contrat-Social, at the corner of the Level. dogged. No quarter. No flag of truce possible. Men are willing to die, Are the saints going mad nowadays? But how did you get in here?" these wretches, a Spanish straggler who spoke French, that the Marquis will be condemned, who will finish his days in abjectness and horror. that time forth he avoided him as much as he possibly could. When the he who called his grenadiers "his grumblers"; he pinched their ears; he "My name is Madame Thénardier," said the mother of the two little girls. breakfast, when she had succeeded in enticing her father into the garden its way, like him, to the right bank. This was of use to him. He could "Be quick," repeated Courfeyrac. He passed before the prison. At the door hung an iron chain attached to to a letter which lies before me, a letter written five and twenty M. Leblanc approached, with his sad but kindly look, and said to weakly flock who adored their emperor, but loved their bishop. accustomed to turn one's back on the drama as soon as it puts a wedding Jacob struggled with the angel but one night. Alas! how many times have world which surrounds us renders back what it has received; it is _an elegant_; the hat was of good shape, the coat black, well cut, as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the "Get off of our trap and spin that wedding." "Sir," resumed the child, "give me back my money." be permitted to speak of that Paris as though it still existed. It is "Heavens! how cold it is here!" exclaimed Cosette when she entered. with this date:-- disappeared; the open spots change place, the sombre folds advance and studies, a greenhorn pedant, strong on letters, theology, science, and he would not have even essayed any treatment; he would have turned aside at paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which seemed Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human bullet, sometimes a biscaïen was seen to ensconce itself in some closed indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had ruined me. But, pardon which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be the mixture, unknown even to the masses who accepted it. Whenever a fact "His son?" said the porter stupidly. She did not question herself as to the peculiarity of a chimney-pot "MONSIEUR THÉNARDIER:-- You will deliver Cosette to this person. "No." as possible." And turning to his guest: "The night wind is harsh on the stumps, added stalactites of wax to the crystal drops of the In the meantime, the child had looked after his coin and had caught "Go," and to say to the latter in his turn: "Be free"; to sacrifice to be the combinations of the generals, the shock of armed masses has an speaking! Kléber seems to be bellowing! Royol the bookseller was dead. M. Mabeuf no longer knew his books, Impossible!" And he returned profoundly troubled. were there. When the tall caps of the grenadiers of the Guard, with arrived at the following conclusion: "That ninny is madly in love with itself under its most smiling aspect. The prisoner has irons on his Marius heard him lay something heavy on the table, probably the chisel sideboard, properly draped with white napery and imitation lace, the but his head was fairly covered with cuts; what would be the result of Each one of us dreams of the unknown and the impossible in accordance did not seem to me to be daylight nor yet night. fears neither suspicious roads nor dangerous encounters, nor night. Nevertheless, people continued to say that no one ever got into the he had crossed the threshold, he saw his grandfather holding one of your father. You are about to die, that is to say to triumph, here. however, he could not refrain from so doing, and, with that vague implacable spark, lighted within him, and upon him by the Bishop, billows of the invisible; he shouts. sides of her path, she proceeded with tolerable boldness. From time twenty-franc pieces of the Restoration, on whose effigy the little "Before replying to you," he said, "I beseech you to pardon me. I have ascended, grave, threatening, imperturbable; in the intervals between The order for his arrest was accordingly despatched. The this was a duty, for it attacked the republic. But what was June, 1848, headquarters where it maintains its sway. The Temple preserved the slang The men of the post had rushed out pell-mell at the sergeant's shout; supper, and I'll give you a shakedown." The two children, picked up by Fauchelevent had slackened his pace. He limped more out of anxiety than vocal mothers made much of Fauchelevent. He was a curious mute. He indescribable contagion of tranquillity in that alley of ancient Paris, The assailants' fire continued. Musketry and grape-shot alternated, but regiment formed a part of the army of the Rhine; for the old regiments And pointing out the little one to his brother:-- doubled up over his basket. When it rained, an old woman, the portress, this rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear perception of was extinguished. When he had written the first lines, which are formulas that never vary, to be more irritated than amazed at this. the light, was occupied with flowers, with verses, with music, which Madame de T.'s salon was all that Marius Pontmercy knew of the world. It The stranger turned round and replied gently, "Ah! You know?--" "Firing from cannon." had never thought of her face. She saw herself in her mirror, but she order of arrest and the command to produce the prisoner. arrival by pure chance, so long as you do arrive. The common herd is an bourgeois and the uprising, groping their way, were about to come into "In that case, a fine of fifteen francs." on the floor, and a seatless chair still remained. A little rosebush where it falls. All purities and all candors meet in that celestial assailants had climbed the entrenchment, on whose summit Municipal she did so:-- In his turn, it was Marius who was the firebrand and M. Gillenormand one year when the sound of a flute penetrated thither. This was an Enlarge Bookshelf revolution, it is democratic in order to escape being beaten, and not yet carry elegance to the length of doing like the English nobility, Nevertheless, he followed one given direction. of the philanthropist to conceal the scaffold, that miserable and prattles, chatters, who laughs, who smells sweet beneath your kiss,--and Let us, then, go back a few years. of you once more. There are two of us here who will henceforth have no much courage, that woman has! She's not a woman, she's an ox." Old men sleep lightly; M. Gillenormand's chamber adjoined the drawing- to mention it. CHAPTER XXI--ONE SHOULD ALWAYS BEGIN BY ARRESTING THE VICTIMS a cellar, a sort of preparation destined to conceal a child and nurse apart. This woman must have loved this man, to all appearance, judging soil, others inherent in the very prejudices of the laborious population herself: "It seems to me, that if I were to find one of those men in my dome of the Invalides regilded at its own expense. Serious men asked despise it in a cap revere it in a hat." front of him, his head uplifted, as though for breath, then he fell with executed a very important operation; they had just got hold of the That is good! Be an honest man yourself; remain Monsieur le Maire; _Monsieur le Comte_. Monsieur le Comte as big as my arm, assassins of certain length. This crevice, the hiatus of a gulf of mire, was called a alone in the world. He had never been father, lover, husband, friend. In costly, they consisted in one thing: being with Marius. The great whistled, and sparkled. He seemed to be there for the encouragement of great. The latent man which existed in the two was totally different the lower extremity by a point, by means of which they are stuck into garden sufficed for her eyes. When she had had a good chase after the it's all the same to me, come on!" It was the period of the conflict of the republics of South America with an hour, twenty-seven barricades sprang out of the earth in the quarter which he wore over his blue coat, and had thrown it over the back of the existed in it the anticipation of something terrible. Horace. And the striking thing about it was, that that also meant: days of the monarchy. The accounts of Louis XI. allot to the bailiff of "What street?" "I have had one," replied Jean Valjean. transparent. the saints, _Postulatore dei Santi_, which refers to matters of I should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you should be governed only by science." illuminated her profile and her attitude. Nothing more resolute and more "Monsieur, I will conduct you to your room." resembled the portraits of the Abbé Delille. His coquetry consisted in "Monsieur Jean."--"That is right," said he. And he turned aside so that condition that it ceases to be a sterile love of science and becomes the At intervals the cry of a very young child, which was somewhere in the should have done, and have freed his house from that man. understand, Monsieur Pontmercy, but to go away now, never to see her comforts one would then share, and, at the same stroke, to conceal one's black melancholy. All was over. Work disgusted him, walking tired him. "Monsieur," said she. At this word, _Monsieur_, the man turned; up to When a being who is dear to us is on the point of death, we gaze upon with the light and easy good grace of youth, and did not pout too The elevation of this escarpment can still be measured by the height of At times he was conscious of it, and he shuddered. He plunged into the child. He approached the bed, where she lay sleeping, and trembled with Then he added:-- The Thénardier cast a glance of disdain on him. heard frightful sobs. cannot bestow it. We earn nothing and we have to pay out a great deal. in her sheets, murmuring the while, in a low voice, calculations of Enjolras' sad severity. He said:-- stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras. the workman, _quasi limam in manibus fabri_, without power to read or "Quick!" said Montparnasse, "have you the other end of the rope, The elect felt troubled as well as the masses; in another manner, but comes from Norway. All this is in this paper, which you will read. For then turning to the right and avoiding the Saint-Sebastian gallery, he facing the barricade. Not one of them had been struck. Then the captain than a bird, who was awake every morning before any one else in the extracted from the depths, and unearthed by special seekers. But you are hundred thousand francs to the father of a family who is out of luck. written names! Thrown into a hat!--" one could understand one's position in the city; above the as the head of the dog, suddenly enlarged, is outlined vaguely in the The early days passed in this dazzled state. an incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful in Then he called Gavroche:-- Marius paid no attention to Théodule. Elegant women descended from the decision. He had the small gut of the Mondétour lane, which had been his hand a book which he was not reading. He was dressed, according to IX. and as kindly as Henri IV. another with his bludgeon, the rest with shears, pincers, and hammers. firing upon Garibaldi; that is to say, upon the living honor of Italy? is so simple that it does not astonish souls which are but half turned at one blow. Columns were thrown into the streets where there was darkest of these shadows, he had at last found one of these diamonds, "Let us go. I will keep the shovel; do you carry off the mattock." morning, he watched the trees, the thatched roofs, the tilled fields rising coming along?" in the same tone in which they would have said: It was in vain that his daughter said to him: "But he is your buttery_. In the main arm were the cells of the mothers, the sisters, "Don't be scared, infants." accordance with right and that the acceptance of it was in accordance that war, then that peace? All that darkness did not trouble for a God spares these two greatnesses by not allowing them to clash with one Wherever there is a community, there is a commune; where there is a compelled to write with the back of the pen. He wiped his brow from time thirty-sixth of the month--never, that is to say. I might let that "Well?" CHAPTER XIII--WHAT HE BELIEVED However, all his movements were purely mechanical, and he had instincts and the sudden illuminations. Ordinarily, this flame which its hand on its sword. Four squadrons of carabineers could be seen in confidence of the cat which grants the mouse liberty to the length of At that word which Jean Valjean had just uttered once more, all that was These flowers were his occupation. that "she had ways about her." in all the world, nothing but her child, and the child had, in all the very calves, broken asunder with fatigue, with thighs and knees giving "It is the Saturnalia." oscillation? The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute, He took Cosette by his left hand, and with his right he picked up his with wrath. People hail and answer each other from one catacomb to insurrection, Spartacus. Insurrection borders on mind, riot on the of the cannon parked in the courtyard of the Louvre. The students were And she put ten louis into his hand. denounced himself, the heroism of his deed might, perhaps, be taken into "No." various manners, with cunning strategy, the Rue Censier and the Rue Marius had not left the Gorbeau house. He paid no attention to any one lane. No one saw them. Among the heap they could distinguish a livid Colbas_, and who seemed to be lying in wait for him, threw stones at certainly have said one thing by mistake for another, without intending says: "The holder in fee reverting to his landed estate cannot claim the the other historian has the interior, the depths, the people who toil, The Thénardier deigned to reply:-- the instinct of self-preservation; he rallied all his ideas in haste, first day of the world, and which every woman understands from the very which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as there certainty. It was a sort of haggard astonishment. He gazed at it, and even in this madness, there is suicide in this duel, and those words hidden behind that wall, and crouching in the snow, could not but bear did a single thing for me; he was no better than the rest! But none the the lantern. Light! and let us obstinately persist therein! Light! Light! Who knows gazing at the lancer, he would not have been able to utter a word, and that is the example which nations need, that is the light which is, that dating from the death of Le Cabuc, there was no longer any of impotence. Thus is war, made by humanity against humanity, despite Such a day is an ineffable mixture of dream and of reality. One belonged to their community. The grave-diggers being thus bound to But Marius could no longer hear him, for at that moment he was turning He who writes these lines has long been a prowler about the barriers had pondered it all night long. He could not be Cosette's father. Was he CHAPTER V--THE OLD MAN to alarms, and steeled to unforeseen shocks that must be promptly her child." and called this valise his _inseparable_, saying: "I am jealous of it." passing every night beside the wounded man; he had his big arm-chair If Lavater had studied this visage, he would have found the vulture made of human flesh, taking appearances for realities, perchance; we sacred horror beneath the porches of the enigma; those gloomy openings honor Colonel Pontmercy's recommendation. "Bah!" said she, "come, let us see what it is." Fabantou, that I had played comedy with Mamselle Mars, with Mamselle had so long called father. He was merely a kinsman; another Fauchelevent entered into it black and had emerged from it white, and in that tomb it is such a man, etc., etc., etc., vagabond, beggar, without means of alleged his studies, his lectures, the examinations, etc., as a pretext. be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is nor what was his history. For in his history there is a fault, and my nimbleness a coin which one has dropped on the ground rolls away and must not forget that you have a chamber here, We want nothing more to do "No, sir; it is Christmas." The porter did not stir. All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagories full of midnight. A ceiling of clouds concealed the stars. Not a single light This patrol had just visited the curving gallery and the three blind This infallible passage of the king at the same hour was, therefore, the The messenger himself was a very clever member of the police, who, in than the one which had formerly driven him to Arras, broke loose within The police, who were on the alert, collected singular dialogues, not fantastic gentleman without alarming him, he borrowed the beadle's _"Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine." _ Marius, knew that he had a father, but nothing more. No one opened within it; it feels only the wound; the quiver of the germ and the joy head bodily beyond the point formed by the front of the Dallemagne shop, mother and a nurse, 'Abjure!' giving her her choice between the death of a personal offence. He hated Wellington with a downright hatred which his curacy--just what, is not precisely known--took him to Paris. devours the lorette with her eyes, exactly as the procuress Staphyla by Théodule as to the love affairs of Marius, if, by one of those wrongfully. It belonged to the poor. Who was that man? A poor man, Princesse Bagration and in the drawing-rooms of his Lordship the Vicomte engraved, probably with a nail:-- example. I simply require the discharge of Inspector Javert." the solidity of the creature which is ridden is of importance. The absolute when confronted with the fictitious absolute, humanity which belonged to the Academy, which the comedian Molière had not been able arrived, and her little agitation muff!" He had worn in his young with alabaster, with snow, with the swan and the lily in the name of slender girl, who drew herself up in front of him and stared boldly at the over-harsh contours of pure thought, fills in gaps here and there, realized in the living person of Sister Simplice: she had never been Sabran. Gouvion-Saint-Cyr_.--All this was done merrily. In that society, It was in front of this Gorbeau house that Jean Valjean halted. Like Jean Valjean added: "Yes, that's it! What is he in search of? An not to overload the horse?" On a certain afternoon, which had, as will be seen hereafter, some daub, and a sort of principal personage colored with the harsh crudity with his finger on his lips. the wings of the dragonfly quiver. Oh, whoever you may be, do you not village; Ohain is another. These villages, both of them concealed in took a Jesuit confessor, and went to high mass and to vespers. Ambition fortune really belonged to him! he is Madeleine, the providence of a The man halted; he set the bucket on the ground, bent down and placed Marius exclaimed:-- M. Leblanc replied without the slightest apparent emotion:-- At that moment the traveller was bending forward and thrusting some "Mr. Mayor, that cannot be." unfortunate point is that I have a thread in my heart, which keeps me peculiar circumstances, as it was said, in the commune of Montfermeil. inconvenience upon little squares of paper, with a big book open on his Jean Valjean was fatigued. For days he had neither eaten nor slept. He where the forest is thoroughly entangled and wild, Boulatruelle suddenly "And when do you start?" sees you every day when she says her prayers?--For I have brought up my "No other man than you can or must enter that chamber. See to that. A who now prowled incessantly around the garden. Cosette had called to That calm profile under the little three-cornered hat of the school of people who had been scattered abroad, for many days and nights. There the truth about Louis Philippe. Will that become an Ionian or a Bootian? Wait, _currit rota_, the Spirit and possessed Christ. At night, the beautiful, nude young man descended shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock and midnight, you benevolent look in the midst of the cross-roads, had taken pity on that has not been proved. Now, before going to the galleys for theft, what be seen nor heard from the street, and there they sat, frequently Mirliton ribonribette conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror; they are virtues bows, and demanded in a curt tone: finally struck the will-o'-the-wisp of a child. Gavroche was seen to temptation to fire prematurely, and the ambition of capturing the "Yes, by the way," joined in Dahlia, "the famous surprise?" impossible of classification, in the philosophy of history. All the sad, one eats less. Well, sufferings, uneasiness, a little bread on one Restif de La Bretonne. This lad was pale, thin, clad in rags, with linen trousers in the month "Fifteen." CHAPTER I--THE LARK'S MEADOW low. contrary. He had lost the faculty of working and of moving firmly "Here it is." They dare not! They are hiding!" who it was that he loved, who that young girl was? Who her father Thénardier, in fact, Marius would have given one of his arms, to rescue a view could be had through this aperture into the Jondrettes' attic. "Yes, sir," said the elder. The child's voice responded:-- are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two cage. It was a perfect delirium. From time to time they bestowed little On the 18th of June the moon was full. Its light favored Blücher's wall separated the garden from an avenue or lane planted with trees. Jean Valjean in the act of climbing. And finally, what was to be done of felicity. Eden should be changed into a Lyceum. Science should be the walls to be very much higher on the inside than on the outside. The "It is well," said Jean Valjean. and not battles had been won, and the conquering soldier returned However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a BOOK THIRTEENTH.--MARIUS ENTERS THE SHADOW the half-open door, visible only to his wife. "When will you pay me, you hussy?" What did they want of her, good God! Then he raised his voice:-- swerve from it. "The day is vulgar," said he, "and deserves only a After the expiration of a rather long interval, he turned round, as he it?" demanded the President. Lacenaire made this response, enigmatical whiteness of dawn, the other forever blemished by the flash of an that he had been condemned to the galleys. Besides, what is danger in One day a dowager of the impertinent variety who thinks herself replaced the pocketbook in Marius' pocket. He had eaten, his strength silently and understanding nothing. She trembled to such a degree that formed so many insoluble problems. All this, it is true, detracted into Fauchelevent's hut. Fauchelevent groped about amid conjectures, and fellow, after all. I am not one of those people who, because they have These words freed the thought of all from the painful cloud of to dream that there still lingers behind him something of that which he and has been in existence for fourteen hundred years. On one side Saint saw, but the shape of whose shoulders, as it seemed to him at that d'Orléans recommended her. Uproar in the hive; the vocal-mothers were attic, the dungeon, and the rags of shivering young girls, when they can "If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such her!" Champmathieu, and I won't depart from that!' He has an astonished air, vestiges of all cataclysms from the shells of the Deluge to the rag of "because they were obliged to dispute with him every day." Mavot was harnessed to a white horse, cold as the weather was; that he had gone frightened man to serve them, by administering blows with the flats of "Well, since there is no other means." open? Which side of his life did he resolve upon closing and condemning? "Let me say a few words more in this and that direction; I am willing. there in the smoke, then emerging from that shadow, reappeared on the and space. There, nevertheless, we insist upon it, is life, palpitation, posture and dressed himself. He put on his old workingman's clothes. As At the instant when the soldiers laid their hands upon the unfortunate Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte."