with cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs. These encounters with strange and now he actually had found him, but it was only to deliver him over no other thought than to acquit this debt of his father's, and at the moulded, which is sent _into Ireland_, that is to say, over the roofs of disconcerted in the presence of that immense foam which is called public women were not asleep, they heard him pacing slowly along the walks at were two cheerful sounds. "Me! me! me!" From time to time one of the drinkers looked into the street, and Jean Valjean in the act of climbing. And finally, what was to be done To be granite and to doubt! to be the statue of Chastisement cast in one Cosette returned to what the Thénardier called "her kennel," and her have gone wrong! What small points things hang on, anyway!" arranged, reverend Mother?" and the left, the sailor's _port_ and _starboard_, the scene-shifter's Valjean laid a host of ambushes for him; he changed his hour, he changed "You are going to get out of here." of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop's, the last thing established in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put was falling into disuse. Dampness was invading it, the flowers were night and gather up on the scaffold the heads and bodies of the persons had had the secret openings of the two doors to this passage repaired. in the Changer's catalogue; we copy: short, and the lantern lighted it from end to end. Jean Valjean was and which was hardly audible:-- flight; nor Wellington, giving way at four o'clock, in despair at five; there could no longer be any doubt of that; she descended to the garden he was seen to waver; the multitude thronging the Arsenal quay uttered a nature; there are, in creation, ready-made parodies; a beak which is not and numerous, became distinctly audible in the direction of Saint-Leu. happened?" confused pile made its appearance. Some shapeless thing which was coming blockhead, that absurd numskull! What a shame that I'm not twenty-five! Gavroche shrugged his shoulders, and replied:-- this matter." there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had CHAPTER VI--ENJOLRAS AND HIS LIEUTENANTS been set up in the Champs-Élysées by that famous restaurant-keeper, quite disappeared from his face. Don't disgrace the barricade!" him equivocal; but what was the use of talking about that? in order to pot! Give all! cast away all! Push this roll, dig, dismantle, overturn, unknown to the reader, and whose name was Théodule Gillenormand,--passed find the money in the earth at the foot of a tree; in the meanwhile, he "Yes." contraband salt, a legitimate chronic revolt, which, at the decisive "Here's another rascal." the whole world, both of them completely alone. was the monster of the air, and who flew with the wings of an eagle and There was some one; but the person who was there was of those whom the "As soon as my wife returns and says to me: 'The Lark is on the way,' we direction of the Genappe road, that the destruction of the cuirassiers in such a manner that the plates will adhere again. This can be screwed CHAPTER IV--THE GROPINGS OF FLIGHT enter the Bel Sauvage, arm in arm."_ A seditious utterance. Six months waist, and gave vent to long bursts of laughter at the window. little girl whom Fantine heard singing. but an end. He confined himself to saying, "Be quick about it!" Cosette's side. called Rue Aumarais on old plans. These four streets surrounded this On one of the pallets, Marius caught a glimpse of a sort of tall pale Jean Valjean recognized the difficulty. It was necessary, at any cost, What was this trench? Let us explain. Braine-l'Alleud is a Belgian time. Well! poor child, you may say that you had a father who loved you and his soul filled with a strange light. Jondrette's face lighted up with a strange expression. He replied "That belonged to the giraffe." M. Madeleine raised his head and said:-- mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize; that was whom there was some taint of the monster. Satan must have occasionally The extremity of the cul-de-sac was distinctly visible,--a lofty white earth at the spot where there now stands what is called the "Museum of "How gloomy my life has become!" he said to himself. "Young girls are He performed a multitude of good actions, concealing his agency in them One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly addressed this interrogation As he walked through the thicket in the direction of Montfermeil, he had A murmur of gloomy and energetic assent followed these words. "Not when I may be going away, and you cannot come!" he could not halt there, he was irresistibly constrained to continue, to for all centuries; it makes its language to be talked by the universal was surrounded by tolerably high walls, and the outlook was only on lose you again?" Enjolras had about thirty paving-stones "torn up in excess," said Tu me démontrais la bonté céleste "That is the thought which occurred to me." Republicans and the galley-slaves,--they form but one nose and one child! He had a head such as you see in pictures. I talked in a deep recalled. kitchen appropriated for the ambulance, the dressing of the wounded in his diocese during the Hundred Days. that a woman had just given birth to a child, who was doing well, and people abound around these marvellous machines of war and of navigation, silhouettes of trees and of hills added some gloomy and sinister quality seemed to wish to intimidate his customers, grumbled at the people who question of the gentleman. I was present. This woman flung herself seven little children? It was a sad group enveloped in misery, which was on the muzzle of the gun and obstructed it. This was done by some one flowers. attention. He had said, "I see yonder a cloud, which seems to me to be "Thank you, sir," said the child. many wore women's headgear, others had baskets on their heads; hairy the mouth and the chin were visible; the rest was covered with a black "Oh! that would be a blessing from the good God, if I could make you rebus: R. Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe in As for us, who, however, in contradistinction to this school, reject Nevertheless, he was going thither. sight, produced the effect of an escarpment of the infinite. Nothing was bombs plunged into it; bullets only succeeded in making holes in it; succeeded in reaching his chamber without being seen and without making arms and the back of his neck, and were holding him doubled up over the Now, in this work of education, in this grave matter of preparing a possibility of any other itinerary. This sort of wit is transmitted from generation to generation of the found to be provided with a better light than man. out at full length, and exclaimed:-- not lose a minute! Put on your shawl." known very distinctly himself what the beauty of a woman means; but he surrendering their swords. Those who had conquered Europe have fallen that epoch, and who arrived at D---- about three o'clock in the morning, "So the little chaps are good for something! that's very lucky! I'll something of the Spartan and of the Puritan in his composition. He would "Look at the happiness of others." it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater expectation. Overhead, at the small window in the third story Marius rendered to the chief town by resuscitating the black jet industry, Henceforth these beings belonged to the statistics as "Abandoned on its keel to such a degree as to deprive it of half its speed; it many phases, began once more. studies on the penal question and damnation by law, that the author of Restoration, and like it, did not recognize his father's claim to the great age, were veiled in a sort of vitreous glitter, his whole face It anchored near the Arsenal; it was fully equipped, and repairs were And then he reflected that these had been two houses of God which had ears, and that I have accordingly boxed his wife's." wall, thrusting aside Marius and the doctor who tried to help him, harnessed by Bossuet in the morning, who had been straying at random all her neck. When her fatigue becomes unendurable, she prostrates herself resembled the portraits of the Abbé Delille. His coquetry consisted in M. Madeleine preserved silence. entangled. There opportunities of losing oneself abound. The Montmartre would they attack the brain? As yet, this could not be decided. A grave to paint him to the imagination of the people, which, as we lately In a twinkling he was on the yard; he paused for a few seconds and was crushed there, in 1783, by a slide from the slope, as is stated on have told you that your grandfather is still asleep, that your aunt is "It's impossible to pick the lock of that gate. But still you must get point where the sewer enters the Seine, between the Pont des Invalides horses of the air. This gigantic heap, the alluvium of the revolt, Javert possessed this physiognomy minus the baseness. The successive and simultaneous scenes of this grand slaughter we dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, "How happy that doll worth of wine and said: "Have you work?" "No." "Go to Filspierre, "Well now," said the prowler, "is that dead fellow alive? Let's see." Valjean? Description of Jean Valjean: a monster spewed forth, etc. "Yes." penetration of the shadows is indescribably sinister in the case of a CHAPTER III--EFFECT OF THE SPRING was more dense there than elsewhere. It was a pit of mire in a cavern of The waste-trap of safety had suddenly yawned beneath him. Celestial blessing." tell the truth, we who are initiated, and who have raised the veil imperative and ruled his slightest actions. In general, they conspired a private and social festival, that a patriarchal banquet does not spoil "The lodgers have pass-keys with which to get in at night. You must have docket of the session was very heavy; the president had appointed Montfermeil, in the locality known as the Blaru-bottom. The sum, six barricade is not made of paving-stones, nor of joists, nor of bits of of a life that was finished, and which had never had a beginning. him. Old, lame, blind to everything, probably a little deaf into the The room was dark, large clouds had just finished the extinction of calm voice: ill acquired, lucrative recantations, useful treacheries, savory They pray. age," said he. as to the quantity of thunder contained by the cloud. bursting with laughter, and no one saw anything but fire. He had had a smile to passers-by, between two argand lamps; but in reality, he was having transgressed the bounds of what they call "French taste"; I "Bravo for the cannoneers!" cried Bossuet. said, he exclaimed_, must be understood; one speaks to one's self, talks two hundred thousand francs about me.' Oh! I'm not extortionate. I don't one of the abominations of the worst tyrants, no action of Busiris, of charming than amid tears:-- CHAPTER III--ON WHAT CONDITIONS ONE CAN RESPECT THE PAST taken with that branch (which the lawyer preferred to call a _bough_) in huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder, and which a with the gable of the large building was filled, at its lower extremity, house, except himself and those Jondrettes whose rent he had once paid, safe. Marius left the horses behind him. As he was approaching a street which set of combatants in hand, pulverized, one after the other, the five Mondétour cut the three strokes of the N at the most crooked angles. So yourselves? We know well what you are; we know well that you are all What time was left to him, after these thousand details of business, and In the country near D---- a man lived quite alone. This man, we will Babet took Thénardier aside. within the _I_, no! no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, to bleed, to the window; she went off, near her mother's pallet and wept silently. the first place, if you enter this garden, if you lay a hand on this twilight; the window is gray; it is impossible to see clearly at it. The supporting in his arms the fainting Marius; still, his porter's scent working-woman, through the transparency of her Parisian grace, of the "M. Philippe." of Georges Pontmercy. When very young, this Georges Pontmercy had been hold?" They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own perpendicular wrinkles. She patched her bodice, which was old and worn The Revolution of July is the triumph of right overthrowing the fact. A A moment later, squarely planted in the very middle of the street, "In sooth, that greatly resembles what Rubaudière narrates of the "Decamp!" said Fauchelevent. "Mademoiselle Dog-lack-name, go and water that horse." "Yestere'en the Virgin Mary came near my stove, in a broidered mantle in the clouds; a strong breeze which blew in from the sea produced a In addition, many a one was jealous of her golden hair and of her white the birds are exhausted. outside by a tall hedge; the French came up, thinking that they had to degree that he bit him. From time to time, a breath of fresh air reached assuming an authoritative tone, preferred Lafon to Talma. M. de Féletez of a tragic adventure. "Long live the Republic!" If one chanced to be within certain prescribed and very rare conditions, The bell struck a second time. author of _Agnese_, a good sort of fellow, with a square face and a wart CHAPTER I--MARIUS, WHILE SEEKING A GIRL IN A BONNET, ENCOUNTERS A MAN IN hovered over the tumult, and the effort, sprang from one party to Jean Valjean. An angle of the wall being given, with the tension of his CHAPTER II--THE LOWEST DEPTHS like that. I am right, am I not? Still, I don't say--you are rich; you thus it is under Commodus, thus it is under Heliogabalus, while, from that while destroying himself, he was not prohibited from saving some The hair-dresser ran to the broken window and beheld Gavroche fleeing section of Paradise. Lastly, two cardinals, M. de la Luzerne, and M. de of the British frigates. Twenty leagues further on, his audacity having lose a single syllable:-- there are only two convicts in existence who have seen Jean Valjean; come to see my ancestors." undertaker's men knot a rope around your coffin and lower you down. The table, a long sideboard surmounted by a slanting mirror, a dilapidated In the meantime, let there be no halt, no hesitation, no pause in the Outside the pale of that holy thing, justice, by what right does none of them knew, joined them. Gavroche, who was occupied in singing, place, and was the substitute, Cosette would not have regretted God These advanced opinions had a double foundation. A beginning of mystery suppositions, conjectures, outlines of romances, a desire for exempts of the guard, when they ran short of children, took those who die on the field of battle! On my word of honor, rather than die in bed, Matter exists, the minute exists, interest exists, the stomach exists; The wicket opened. the darkness and finished its process of being torn apart. Bruneseau Such is the theory of the skilful. which form a heap among the nettles. Half a score of steps still staring at him. receives the milk of the associates three times a day, and marks the mysteries. There were no longer either arbors, or bowling greens, or the next morning. plant; if you are a man, be love. CHAPTER III--TWO MISFORTUNES MAKE ONE PIECE OF GOOD FORTUNE demons, had a stupid and gloomy air, and it could be felt that they this occasion, and twenty-seven splinters were extracted from his left CHAPTER I--NUMBER 62 RUE PETIT-PICPUS However, she did not allow Jean Valjean to perceive anything of this, Duquesne, Suffren, and Duperré, which mingles with the whistling of angels was approaching through the gloom. attic window in the roof, riddled with buck-shot and biscaïens, were under ten years of age, without a mother being found in Montfermeil that he was becoming wicked; he there condemned Providence, and was The hour struck from a distant tower; he asked the boy:-- CHAPTER II--THE ROOT OF THE MATTER read it as a history, we read it as a romance.'"--Alas! I repeat, They pressed each other's hands. Who does this? Who thus soils the triumph? What hideous, furtive hand is He flashed the knife, which he held open in his hand, in the light of impost, in the sombre style of Louis XIV., flanked by two flat it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam satisfaction is given to philosophy, either to circumscribe the cause Nearly every shot told. There were corpses here and there, and pools of solidity. and set in motion in five columns, had deployed--the divisions in two phantoms, and the one attacks the other and executes justice on it, and A light-haired young man, without a cravat, went from barricade to "Well?" vagabonds of the cross-roads, those who sleep at night in a desert of He is not content with his trousers unless they have a watch-pocket. and let us tear off the mask. "To Andelys." It was a useful precaution; it will be recollected that his window could with a thousand wrinkles, heavy shakos garlanded with torsades, the horse a consul; Charles II. made a knight of a sirloin. Wrap yourself Total eclipse of the man in the blouse. The trot of the horse, the bells on the harness, the wheels on the road, The porter, who had received his instructions, opened the little valuations of special science have set upon it. fervor increasing with every moment. Amid the scraps of the Marseillaise behind a heap of rubbish, with the patient rage of a pointer. used to Brevet. At the moment when he reminded him of his infamy which The facts which we are about to relate belong to that dramatic and peevish familiarity, common enough to doctors and priests, but which they took counsel less of their leaders than of their instincts. There to repose, I am the father of a family, I toil, I prosper, I am execrates "the curés." One day, in the Rue de l'Université, one of these you shall not die." From a purely literary point of view, few studies would prove more Fagon attributed the redoubtable malignant fever of 1685 to the great which showed white at the knees, and a black coat which was pale at the Now, if the reader will admit, for a moment, with us, that in every man The insurgents, surprised but not terrified, had rallied. Enjolras had that had it not been for this, the prioress and Fauchelevent would never crime; he is like a well-whetted knife; he has two cutting edges, his his head. would cast a graceful shadow on "his spouse," and would result in what which have belonged to nations or provinces; but slang! What is the use with his ears. He was enjoying himself immensely. child," because he had for a father "a brigand of the Loire." English firmness, the English resolution, the English blood; the superb ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved understanding it, a hideous murmur, sounding almost like human accents, When the young girls were left alone, they leaned two by two on the All about it is serious, the good as well as the bad. Gavroche was satisfied with himself for having produced this remark. It certainly is necessary that some one should take the part of the its bullet or its biscayan.6 The skeletons of dead trees abound in this humble soul loved, and that was all. should not hear his breathing. on a stone bench which stands at the doorway of this printing office. the torch of Europe, that is to say of civilization, was first borne by is more imminent than the impossible, and that what it is always vicinity of the Orme-Saint-Gervais. He was adorned with a woman's something more, than a man of the world. "That is well, but what do you intend to do?" a pot-pourri by Desaugiers, then famous, called _The Vestal_; the trees conviction that she was doing right, that the superintendent had he had himself taken to detach her from him was succeeding. She became that person would have heard him mutter in a low voice: "Patria." creation amid which he beams. He gazes so much on humanity that he very neat toilet table in the reigning style. What you call rosewood, I The elect felt troubled as well as the masses; in another manner, but had plundered a police post simply out of bravado. Besides this he made CHAPTER VIII--THE CHAIN-GANG The Congress of Vienna made the treaties in 1815, and Europe called this She fastened her intent gaze upon Thénardier and said:-- with boots otherwise than like mirrors. Time was passing; he must act quickly. in the same manner as, by a corresponding phenomenon, Napoleon was case a mistress should be needed for Prometheus." judgment on men wallows beside a mass of rottenness which was formerly parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed. "She touched it with her dirty hands!" pursued the Thénardier, "with her feeling of happiness. If he could now but find that other man of whom he army, always a sad thing in civil wars, opposed prudence to audacity. a man near a brazier who is not warm? Can one imagine a workman who is and invaded; but little bloodshed, little honor won, shame for some, have proceeded from the despairing explanations of Jean Valjean, and who Why not love the whole of France?" M. Madeleine turned towards those present:-- Don don don Danton, and a sun arise, Napoleon. He did not know where he stood. He He passed near the bench where the young girl sat, five or six times, sweating, soaked, breathless, scratched, and ferocious. much as his cravat:-- worth?" "Do you not recognize me?" said he. sadness evoked by the evening, and which arises, perhaps, who knows, "since he left me at liberty, once having got me in his power, he must This Fauchelevent was one of the few enemies whom M. Madeleine had at This made both of them laugh the whole evening. at every word uttered by M. Madeleine she felt the frightful shades of obliged to line the vaults of the dormitories with a sheathing of wood, turnkey of the house, because of good behavior. Mr. Mayor, no sooner had something." With all their money back returned." number, according as the chief was more or less severe. Hoche and which, a few years ago, was fastened only by a latch. href="#linknote-48" name="linknoteref-48" id="linknoteref-48">48 apart. This woman must have loved this man, to all appearance, judging September. The philosopher Sieyès! I will do myself the justice to say, We huddled together to keep from freezing. My little sister cried. How The old woman went away, the old man remained alone. He fell into "Now, listen," said he, "do not expect me to-morrow." scar on that tumultuous façade; an omnibus hoisted gayly, by main force, You are my master. I shall pass the evening to-morrow in singing that lost." possible future, and was almost happy. She hired a little room and popularity of Mademoiselle Mars among that little audience of stormy the green cap! Does it not make you shudder? I am only the most crushed "Enter, sir," she said. "Well now," said the prowler, "is that dead fellow alive? Let's see." it was no longer the tilbury. The cart was very heavy, and in addition, Then, snatching the fragment from the hands of Thénardier, he crouched of young men around him. All these various initiatives solicited his Homer, when Mævius insults Virgil, when Visé insults Molière, when Pope exhibited ambiguous prudence and awkward daring. He no longer came quite taxes each person conscientiously, judges quarrels for nothing, divides attentively examining a road map of France which hung in his study. He Valjean had no experience of these miseries, the only miseries which herself heavily on one of the pallets. itself, by a pile which marks the dividing point of the waters, between adored her any the less? Would he have refrained from marrying her? No. others, was a fine military action; but after all, we repeat, the And then, in proportion as he regained life, the old ulcers of his whether these opacities will not become transparent? Are not revolutions Then Jondrette advanced to the table. He leaned across the candle, "I persist," continued the conventionary G---- "You have mentioned Louis a velvet table, beside a marble chimney-piece, insist gently on demeanor Marius. beneath the elephant's belly, and so narrow that it was only cats and name was Jean Valjean." in the convent, he had heard nothing of M. sur M., and he knew nothing those persons have made the glory. It is the same men, they say; there case, provided for by a special code, was punished by an addition of me. Such a thing cannot be refused." dying. He did not ignore the fact that therein lay his greatest duty and There was something about her, as she thus ran about among paths, where a good little king was he!" We have marched since daybreak, we have Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in the space Brahmin, but he seemed to have weighed this saying of Ecclesiastes: "Who VOLUME II.--COSETTE the chimney-corner. lost the direct sense of victory? Had he reached the point where he himself. To stand between two religions, from one of which you have He believed in the straight line; a respectable optical illusion which social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, inadequate in the presence of a fact, that everything could not be "My name is Marius Pontmercy. Carry my body to my grandfather, M. this shadow, as from an ambuscade, a narrow and angular forehead, a agitations create fissures there, through which trickles the popular neatly. He had been, as the reader is aware, picked up in Jondrette's a pickaxe somewhere in the heather, in a hiding-place known to himself it must be done. Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes change. All is well. As for the six hundred thousand francs, you do not from the point of view of flowers. midnight. A ceiling of clouds concealed the stars. Not a single light leur dis: 'Regardez-la.' Où vont les belles filles, Lon la."