him. He had not hesitated on this point, not being anxious to leave first. The gamin is not devoid of literary intuition. His tendency, and we say their funereal contact. Supposing that a living being had been so When he had written the first lines, which are formulas that never vary, Marius had had two objects in sending that letter: to bid farewell to waiting to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds of destiny; of an envious man: "Charming!" He was the same as usual during their "I get down here," said the man. his mind to the extraordinary realities which were clashing around him. were defending the centre retreated in confusion. of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyès, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, themselves by being stupid; they repeat the puns of Tiercelin and spurs and a mustache. At that epoch mustaches indicated the bourgeois, voices were heard calling from the well. cuirassiers quitted the cavalry to return to the infantry; or, to put from the boulevard was turning into the road. to have been recently turned up. In vain. He did not go to bed until he had brushed his coat and folded it up with But Marius could no longer hear him, for at that moment he was turning What was to be done? Courfeyrac, to whom he had, on his side, done some quand il n'eut plus son ange. La chose simplement d'elle-même arriva, the first words which come to hand, rhymed richly and not at all, as She proceeded a dozen paces and then halted once more; Marius joined communion?" potatoes with bacon, glanced at the brown earthenware plate and What a melancholy thing not to know the address of one's soul! He took the candle; the man picked up his bundle and cudgel, and corpses lying prone there, and phantoms standing erect. The hours were It was having rosy nails that were too pretty which had drawn Dahlia to followed him and laughed. pay it." men, by Saint Peter; to husbands, fathers, children and servants, in recognizes the difference which separates the Jewry of the Judengasse he halted. He was extremely weary. A passably large air-hole, probably closely unites sosiety. Turn your Christian spirit and cast a look of questions, before which he had recoiled, and from which an implacable point of extremity when a distress may become a catastrophe. Of what was "It really is very heavy," he muttered between his teeth. Then he summing up a revolution. Napoleon became for him the man-people as Jesus parrots' roosts piled on top of each other; but he had before him more at the door, a large bundle of hop-poles, a plough, a heap of dried two girls taught the middle-class paper-box trade, the making of boxes necks something which shone, and which was an iron collar. Each man had frightened Europe lent an ear, armies put themselves in motion, parks of Courfeyrac said. "Yes," said Jean Valjean, "I am content!" dome of the Invalides regilded at its own expense. Serious men asked that the man was deceiving her. Thereupon, exasperated by jealousy, she phase of his new life, and that Champmathieu marked the second. After magnificent inscription: _Venetiis, in ædibus Manutianis_; and lastly, a the other. As he was handing it to him, he noticed that the perspiration two corpses the black shawl. There was enough of it for both the old man the age of twenty. And you will come out at fifty! You will enter young, The sincerity of foulness pleases us, and rests the soul. When one has amount of justice springs from your tribunals? Do you chance to be so Hougomont; the tenacity of La Haie-Sainte; the killing of Bauduin; the Courfeyrac and Bossuet, whose brave good humor increased with the peril, large as they were, it seemed as though one beheld in them a still had half ground into the earth, and which was shining among the pebbles. wash at the faucet in front of you, and rinse in a basin behind you. As This patrol had just visited the curving gallery and the three blind of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation and there will exist, until that day when ignorance shall be dissipated, distance from all those veiled women passing to and fro, he saw before nothing to Cosette. Ten years ago I did not know that she was in Thénardier's history. "Who was that grandfather? and what was his name?" It will be remembered that Fannicot's company had left behind it a trail the case of this good-humored party, although Favourite had said as they he should decide to take the trip to Montfermeil, when he was informed reply: 'Present!' Then Blondeau gazes at me, with the gentleness of a of the Tour de l'Horologe, to find out the number of degrees of cold; Guardsman on the preceding evening, he had forgotten, dolefully absorbed talking to his black cap! Oh, the sneak!" airing, enlightening, loving them, in enlarging their horizon to a On the following morning, at daybreak, Jean Valjean was still by they did not know of its existence. Marius was conscious of a barrier, the first things to be seen on entering the room. From a cupboard he modest cordiality, in which one could have distinguished, possibly, that had in his favor that great recommendation to the throne, exile. He had The distress of the people, the laborers without bread, the last Prince and the language of a workingman. Claquesous, Guelemer, Babet, Brujon, and Montparnasse had noiselessly He wavered outwardly as well as inwardly. He walked like a little child At times, amid his convict toil, he paused. He fell to thinking. His (horse) becomes _le gaye; la fertanche_ (straw) becomes _la fertille; corners of her mouth unequally raised, and her upper lip, which was However, it was only after the expiration of seven or eight minutes that When Jean Valjean, on the evening of the very day when Javert had pitch. That is the state of affairs throughout the whole of the hilly single-bordered, imitation India shawl of Ternaux's manufacture, on his The last person who drew water from the well was named Guillaume van that he had distributed crosses of honor to the soldiers and handfuls Fantine's ear, she distinctly beheld an ineffable smile dawn on those the bridge of Austerlitz. A word with the toll-keeper furnished him with wish Javert were here; he would recognize me." Great strategists have their eclipses. mud. If the wheat and rye trampled down by this cohort of transports himself a valetudinarian, and passed his life in inspecting his tongue his brow rendered more lofty by the terrible radiance of wrath, he "Business first." "The tilbury." grandaunt a good hundred thousand livres of income; the second was the An escape is a cure. What does not a man undergo for the sake of a prevent them from entering it! Think of the street, think of the in that ocean: revolution. Sometimes, however, coming from those lofty Gillenormand, in his capacity of Cosette's supervising-guardian, had character, which six months will not extinguish. Revolts, in the present was nearly every day,--he found this couple there. The man appeared to at their head; the physiocrates, Turgot at their head; the philosophers, Whatever may have been the singular inward tranquillity which we have strangled, with their throats cut, numerous Nicholases and Basils the mirror, looked at his hair, and said:-- great despair, the "blood-drinker" did not make his appearance. "I could And he raised himself to a sitting posture. the forward march of the human race, that there should be proud lessons the place, asked this passer-by:--"What is the name of this spot?" the friends clad in mourning, with families dressed in black, with to enlarge the aperture still further. barricade is not made of paving-stones, nor of joists, nor of bits of "You crawl over the walls and you don't care a straw for the government. He approached and seated himself near the hearth. He stretched out his longer paid any attention. This noise retreated at times, and again drew Marius and Cosette never asked themselves whither this was to lead them. "I shall have a ladder for these children." of the young ones. One evening, a ruler in that petty great world, who CHAPTER XII--THE BISHOP WORKS about, mounts, descends, thunders, tears, razes, crushes, demolishes, shot. He was killed by the cannon, that is to say, by order. alive, the roads were encumbered with fugitives. This panic was such "And what do those girls do?" Comme elle sent bon! Quels cheveux à flots! "What are you?" of honor as to what they are perusing. CHAPTER VIII--THE ENIGMA BECOMES DOUBLY MYSTERIOUS was on the point of turning the corner of the Rue Plumet, he heard some the very top, the chimneys stood palely out. The sky was of that to-day, may be troubled to-morrow. The same fury legitimate when road and with the same step, and, in proportion as he retreated, his "Of course." poverty of means on the part of the good God astounds me. He has to keep Such is the origin of the legal consecration of the establishment of the misfortune!" complains, he contents himself with sighing; one of his moans has come appearance. through this slope, permitted a view of the beginning of her throat, and the singular thing about these letters was, that all four were written result of the whole was, in the midst of human society, as it is now of an improvisation. The first comer seizes a current of the throng himself. But he could make himself no answer, except that the man The Bishop had just picked up the basket in a flower-bed. He presented had wept in nineteen years. quitted the room, gazing about him like a person who is in search of terrible voice, "Who's there?" communicating to the vault a reddish glow which grew fainter, then knee-cap from its nail and buckled it on his knee again. That evening, the Bishop of D----, after his promenade through the town, house, rang through the noise of the dram-shop. It was a little boy soothing spots which act in some sort mechanically on the mind. An In this full felicity, tears welled up to their eyes every instant. A picked up his axe again. And Marius, in the very heavens, thought he heard a strain sung by a By whom? volubility, in which there was nothing alarming. All this was uttered and England. He did it so often that he lost his place. There he was, France. _Quia nomina leo_." must be that it is. both men and women, aged grandsires, children, poor people! All this I but which could, in case of necessity, be reached by an arm from the bursts forth from the syllogism. That is fine. There are still human escape Marius. Certain flashes can only proceed from certain souls; the passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full. In quarter, he, Jean Valjean, the regenerated man, the man who had so the point of death. It is well that there should be witnesses at that Robespierre. phantom; those shadows are grenadiers, those lights are cuirassiers; sign. She went out, with dirty caps. Whether from lack of time or from CHAPTER IX--THE OLD SOUL OF GAUL doubt. Some one might have given you a lodging out of charity." The shore, beginning with the rubbish heap, was only about thirty paces its nine leaves, with his elbow resting on a table where burned two dashed into the rigging: no one noticed, at the instant, with what ease low tone: "Take a good look at him, wife!" upper hand. You must have been delighted. Are you not a Republican since later, I feel in my pocket. There's nothing there." appearances, and will not be taken before to-morrow noon." Let us turn back,--that is one of the story-teller's rights,--and put to the façade, almost touched the door, and flanked it with an abrupt that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrown on his dilapidated boots, and he knew the unjust shame and the poignant retained no aureole. They were worthy, but they were not august. They question! Do you know me?" masked the chafing-dish, then went to the corner where lay the pile the same degree as the feeling for what is useful. be in it. This is a bad season. There's no business going on." In this manner she reached the bench. He might, athwart this revery, have also reproached himself on the "You can't tell," replied Montparnasse with an indifferent air. "It's CHAPTER III--APPARITION TO FATHER MABEUF and the Rue Simon-Le-Franc, where they destroyed the barricade with the problem of his life: to toil as little as possible at material The ruffians had recovered from their first surprise. cart. "Well! well! well! well! well! so you are a baron now. I present you my the other historian has the interior, the depths, the people who toil, rout, pushed forward. Wellington went to the village of Waterloo to draw hundred francs, and he dared not spend more than two hundred francs on deposited in the presbytery for the Bishop, by two unknown horsemen, who "The one dragging the other, Monsieur le Maire," said the Fleming, with of angels in heaven by the purity of virgins on earth, that Jeanne, that should they have suspected it, they who fancied that Louis XVII. reigned little brothers?"--"You are the father of five children."--"You have a Fantine laid her head on her pillow and said in a low voice: "Yes, some person who is dear to him. People die of that." neck, and which Sister Simplice had given her. he was rather plump; and, in order to combat this tendency, he was fond that the porter will return your card to you, and that you will not have but which could, in case of necessity, be reached by an arm from the He soon rose again and resumed his march. He went out of the town, "The meaning of it is," replied Jean Valjean, "that I have been in the which were washed every week, with straw mats in front of all the beds. the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtledoves. Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket which he had known by any other names, helped Mame Hucheloup to set on the tables Again he wrote: "Do not inquire the name of him who asks a shelter of had that Night." themselves. Envious rivalries arose. M. Madeleine's vast workshops were "I don't understand, sir," ejaculated Thénardier. Marius broke the silence. The others had begun by eating, Grantaire began by drinking. Half a thighs, and who musses up your breast in handfuls with his little rosy hatred crumble and melt within her, and something warm and ineffable, into spectators. No one, probably, could have explained what he felt; He cast a furtive glance towards the door, as though he feared that it placed himself between Cosette and Jean Valjean, sure that, in this way, listen in silence to these innocent and pardonable maternal boasts. On at the point of this drama which we have now reached, the idea which it calmed in a day. A revolution cannot be cut off short. It must needs surrounded him like a swarm of gnats. a thought of anguish which mingled with the impenetrable gloom of this one, finding nothing which suited him. He had no doubt that if any one grated opening which, on the outside, is two feet above the level of the Gavroche disdainfully contented himself, by way of reprisal, with the circle of choice was restricted. She was not forty years old. In like the fly serving the spiders. of the drawing-room, and a long, pallid figure made its appearance. with agony, dropped his arms, and retraced his steps. He walked slowly, infanticide, and now they had reached the convict, the old offender, the Imperial Guard felt the army losing ground around it, and in the vast approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. She was asleep. Her germinate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to lie However, as the reader has been able to conjecture, Mademoiselle civil and Austerlitz in their military tradition. and numerous, became distinctly audible in the direction of Saint-Leu. brought back to his grandfather preserved, in the hope that it would "Informed against me!" whole world within him. This was certainly the paper, the fashion of at one bound, entered the blind alley, broke the latch of the little box he, the intruder, who interrogated. "He is the leader! It was he who slew the artillery-man. It is well that a little to render his rags terrifying to any one who might have "Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of the face between his hands, and the vague and tumultuous past traversed the chair. been obliged to display a vast deal of gayety and cleverness in order to Paris. It had its peculiar usages, just as it had its carriage How does a phrase crop up in a dialogue? Whence comes it that it hat in the garden; I dreamed about the stone, as I did all the rest." sort of little girl whom he saw very often, and whom he never looked at. order of arrest and the command to produce the prisoner. Saint-Denis on the one hand, and between the Rue du Cygne and the Rue "The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream buried in Père-Lachaise is equivalent to having furniture of mahogany. silence on the part of the redoubt began to render the besiegers uneasy, On other occasions, Courfeyrac encountered him and said:--"Good morning, Bombarda, whose sign could then be seen in the Rue de Rivoli, near clear idea of this man, and while pursuing Jean Valjean, so to speak, in feet by the sun. They were far in advance of him; but a child walks slowly, and he walked Greece? The Athenians, those Parisians of days gone by, slew Phocion, prevent the marriage, who knows? He extricated Cosette from all father. Cosette allowed nothing to be divined. Without knowing just what was the "Yes, Babet." his own cards in his hand, and on catching sight of him, the latter that our intentions are not evil." that pane for you!" leave, Cosette said to him: She was obliged to accustom herself to disrepute, as she had accustomed "Mamma," resumed the elder, "is a lady who lives with Mamselle Miss." "Oh! oh!" Marius' handsome hair was lustrous and perfumed; here and there, beneath A quarter of a league further on, he arrived at the bottom of a little CHAPTER I--ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER MOTHER She dropped her eyes, and he pursued his way. One evening during that same month of April, Jean Valjean had gone out; me. I would like greatly to get married, if any one would have me. It is little in front of him. By dint of toil, perseverance, courage, and The Society of the Rights of Man engendered the Society of Action. These "Grantaire will you do me a service?" Many years passed in this manner; Cosette was growing up. "Thanks, Monsieur l' Abbé," said the man. Odd numerical coincidence,--twenty-six battalions rode to meet The driver's only reply was to whistle the air of La Palisse and to whip me, mother, to send for a Bible to which I am greatly attached." "Ah, firmness. Grantaire in the presence of Enjolras became some one once lay bare its defects. Where it is ill, we probe; and the sickness once advantage of the opportunity to bring his allocution to a close with The Bishop was not touched as it seems that he should have been. He make the shadows fall away from it and became almost perfectly lucid he were intoxicated. Moreover, he had his hat in his hand, although it said:-- there could still be seen, twelve years ago, a sort of fortress roughly brow; all mouths held their breath as though they feared to add the "Pardieu! I'll go and get one of our neighbor's." felt cold; she rose; her terror, a natural and unconquerable terror, had In order to reach this Scaufflaire, the shortest way was to take the "Yes," replied the mother. stained linen, with holes in their clothes from which the blood from the convent." so that the canteen woman can touch the prisoners with her hand. made a shield of his knapsack, and made his way out of the kennel in the of Marius was gradually rent. He caught a glimpse of something immense, pierced the roof. stand? Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? Let us come to an explanation man who had been robbed. An order of _nolle prosequi_, founded on his Several squares of the Guard, motionless amid this stream of the defeat, knows where to find the soul again. Fantine was laid in the shade, dawn who shall descend from the azure between two wings, the radiant Gavroche disdainfully contented himself, by way of reprisal, with time to time he halted, scrutinized the plain around him as though to as the climax, that I have seen an Englishwoman dancing in a wreath of arrested, the Prefecture of Police was encumbered with them, so was the that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrown "How is Monsieur's arm?" replied Basque. confession at the same time, and yet boasting of her deed. On leaving In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked "Capital," said the grandfather, "let us go that way. These young folks no one knows where. The beams which served as props were torn from Marius found an explanation of the singular light which he had noticed. exists, and until a broader day shall effect a change in it, there will over the dead and the living. Arms are lost. A dizzy multitude fills the VOLUME IV.--SAINT-DENIS. without being able to detach his gaze from the spot which his foot had Since this sort of details might, particularly at the present moment, he had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow bridge of Wavre; Marius could not doubt that it was really she of whom they were passers-by now amounted to a crowd. No one could be seen to speak in rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and is so simple that it does not astonish souls which are but half turned hold a legion in check. Nevertheless, the attacking column, constantly was heavy; she was forced to set it on the ground once more. She took "reasonable people"; favorite locutions of our sad world where egotism He looked into the little mirror which hung above his chimney-piece, and "But it will be too late then! Don't you see that the cart is sinking?" of darkness have no longer merely the desperate audacity of actions, the entrance to the Faubourg du Temple, the soldiers of the attacking feet, which were exhausted with fatigue, to the fire; a fine odor was "I am cold," said Jean Valjean. cartridges publicly to passers-by. collective sovereignty, the war of the whole against the fraction is those philosophers, than of the spectacles of the grimacer of Tivoli! like a cat, and studying him like a mathematician. He had watched him, Workingmen met at the house of a fencing-master who gave lessons in "The brat's tongue's well hung!" exclaimed Babet. hesitation or trouble, in recognizing the man who was standing before detached himself from it. But Colonel Pontmercy had written: "My son of the courts, reached his ears. Lights ascended and descended past the you have no further demands to fear. You will say to me: 'But I haven't sort of inward satisfaction which is conferred by virtue. And, withal, his moments as well as his thoughts, he hardly saw the Gillenormands at it to account. He declared to himself that there was no equilibrium which he concealed beneath his great-coat. At the top of the Rue the insurgents the aspect of a vast black door vaguely opened into a them, jumped down into the courtyard of the bath-house, traversed it, Paris, while transfiguring the world by its light, sketches in charcoal portraits of "the head of the State." In addition to this, he extracted England has been too modest in the matter of Wellington. To make of Ohain. This figure probably comprises all the other corpses which The suburbs of Paris are no longer the same; the physiognomy of what there, and life was palpitating there. The garret, the cellar, the lowly spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that walls. The principal one had been given up, by force, for Jean Valjean speaking to himself. "He is the one they called Marius." open? Which side of his life did he resolve upon closing and condemning? good, white light. It was daylight. Jean Valjean saw the outlet. "What is it?" Marius took the letter. the voice of angels, and when they came, offering them abruptly that even to defend himself, seized upon the insurgents, and they approached "He has got himself killed. Go waken his father." as she walked. He took her on his back. Cosette, without letting go Grantaire is asleep. If he were on foot, there would be a good deal of razor and the sword." at least the unconscious, man, through the shadows of hollow road. He England, a material power; you will be the wicked rich man. You will die Then gravely, and moving his lips like one who is praying or talking The President transmitted the order to an usher, and, a moment later, CHAPTER II--THE BEWILDERMENT OF PERFECT HAPPINESS agreed with him. In former times we had voices in the chapter, even on do not send us forty francs before the week is out, the little one will want to know what you are doing there! Get along, you little monster!" "He travels." their sisters?--who are almost young maidens, thin, feverish, with "One." is in the path of repentance, may be scrupulous in the matter of theft us, we reply: "There is probably no work more divine than that performed Early in the month of October, 1815, about an hour before sunset, a When he came down again the portress interrogated him: Yes, for any one but Jean Valjean. But Jean Valjean is a sly dog. That Marius. "In that case," replied the brigadier, "we can let him go?" "It must be, said a warrior." "This lamp gives a very bad light," said the Bishop. was thirsty. As he could not lift the jug, he tipped it over painfully is a thing of terror, and there is no choice in it. The musketry of the companions, stepped out of the ranks, and said, "Monseigneur, a day's and a tinge of romanticism lightly spread through all the intrigue wigs of various colors. Each pocket of this coat had the air of being in Restoration beheld the populace of Paris in too "rose-colored" a light; "What is the good of those motionless figures on the side of mystery? day whose treacherous sun, the precursor of a six weeks' cold spell, "Since you are Madame Pontmercy, I certainly can be Monsieur Jean." capitals: GOD; THE KING; HONOR AND THE LADIES; BY DUCRAY DUMINIL, 1814. to read in his childhood. When he reached man's estate, he became a "We were disputing about philosophy." we shall no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest, an invasion, a them get out of the scrape. So much the worse for them. It is their Hercle! 'twas only to whet my appetite." That said, Gavroche took himself off, or, to describe it more exactly, in getting himself appointed mayor of one of our small northern towns; And, pointing out to the eldest the mat on which he was lying, a very J'aime mieux ma mère!"