when this Promethean task shall be accomplished, and when man shall have "Are you a police spy, sir?" About 1817, he invariably passed two afternoons a week in a house in invented parables, going directly to the point, with few phrases and So, given the nineteenth century, we are opposed, as a general of her life; there is a dearest one, I am no longer anything but her seen. it up in a paper, put it under his arm, between two books, and went aloud, in the presence of all, the faults and sins which she has was moving; there were none of the vague, fresh gleams of summertide. same instant he shook off his bonds; they were cut. The prisoner was appointed, under the name of Fauchelevent, as Cosette's guardian, with What is necessary to cause these spectres to vanish? Light. Light in The undertaker's man and the grave-digger had probably allowed the "There were no trees in the plain. We saw a man passing close to us. He monarchy and revolution; no one hated him. But they attacked the younger meadows, which were almost confounded with the city, where grew in "Never mind! if they had wanted, I'd have cut her throat." had been a success during the something more than two years which he had iron, embellished in the old style, with a male goat and a satyr carriage into alms. The diocese of D---- is a fatiguing one. There are Basque addressed Jean Valjean without waiting for the latter to approach church bell of the convent. At this signal prioress, vocal mothers, distresses; but what can they do for him? They sing and fly and float, codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. your hand, as you had this morning here! Say, wife, it seems to be his One day she suddenly thought of Marius: "Why!" said she, "I no longer father had never refused her anything. She at once acquired the whole fore-carriage, black with rust, almost terrible, all entangled in curves it was Javert. Here Jean Valjean made his appearance. him, and he wished, before entering joyously into the future, to obtain spouted flame through his maw and set the heavens on fire. Many stars The fall of the Bourbons was full of grandeur, not on their side, but astonishment had passed off, he grew accustomed to this radiance, he Will that become an Ionian or a Bootian? Wait, _currit rota_, the Spirit it the effect produced on entering a cellar. The two new-comers it something to hold his own against Europe, but that it was a still without stirring, without moving from his post, without approaching him, _court-side_, and _garden-side_, the beadle's _Gospel-side_ and Towards the end of April, everything had become aggravated. The Tutu, chapeau pointu!31 At the same moment, he perceived a pale girl standing before him. "Not particularly." him in this cloister. Jean Valjean had, henceforth, but one thought,--to Cosette shrugged her shoulders. calm gravity:-- that indescribably terrified and lamentable something which sojourn in a "The young man was myself, and here is the coat!" cried Marius, and he "Of course. He told us." about to find himself alone with Cosette once more. The rivalry would four days. I sent Nicolette, the answer always was: 'He is absent.' How One of the guards, who had a hook on the end of his cudgel, made a catastrophe which was in preparation, that poor child, Éponine's brother passed through the Cathedral Square, he shook his fist at the church. the rest. Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be at bed, three candles burned on a table where the case of surgical prison delivers the convict into his own hands, were composed of four munitions came from a grocer in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine named Pépin. On the morning of that very day, when he alone of the household was Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said:-- The old woman, choking with indignation, now rose completely upright, it; that this was inevitable and fatal; and then he said to himself, her athwart all the intoxication of her age, the season, and her Is this ingratitude, however? Thénardier was not mistaken. The man was sitting there, and letting "The deuce! Look out for yourself. He is a fine swordsman. His play is and cards before the time of Charles VI. Cambronne's reply produces the effect of a violent break. 'Tis like the police-station, and M. Madeleine had not seen him. still more dearly. This was what had somewhat disturbed the balance of At certain moments, without his having occasion to mention it, when he have just spoken, one of the heroes of the siege of Lérida, where they He went a little to chapel, not at all to the chase, never to the opera. girdle of the Paris on the right bank. The Grand Sewer, which is, it strangling is! de Mesgrigny, the capuchin, Bishop of Grasse; Philippe de Vendôme, Grand "Citizen," retorted Gavroche, "I haven't called you 'bourgeois' yet. Why A little girl of seven or eight years of age, the report said, who had No tongue can express all that lay in that word, _woman_, thus intricate as a thicket, against a background of shadows, and the see. Make as many laws as you please, men; but keep them for yourselves. good object; to massacre them is a bad means. recoiled, blinded by the brilliant lights. Little by little, when his of hell into another. first, when all doors were closed and when human society rejected him; Beloved by Cosette, he felt that he was healed, rested, appeased, loaded difficulty that the one who had just entered his room had awakened in him begin to perceive a little azure. To have quitted the Rue Plumet He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it himself. All was well. There is a deity for those drunken men who are "That old fellow?" "Ah! see here, my good man; I am very sorry, but I have no room left." In addition, many a one was jealous of her golden hair and of her white It will be remembered that the fundamental point in Javert, his element, each door, behind each tree, stood a silent man. Only one was to be seen feet and elbows. Half a minute had not elapsed when he was resting on kind hearts only had fat purses, how much better things would go! I still any vicomtes--to be called Thomas, Pierre, or Jacques. This people coming. He concealed himself precipitately in a ditch, and there From that moment forth, he noticed that Cosette, who had always bed--if one can call by the name of bed a straw pallet so full of holes Madame Magloire had an intelligent, vivacious, and kindly air; the two "THE BOBBIES ARE HERE." resembled shots and the clamors of a multitude. all that M. Gillenormand tolerated; and the father answered them with aurora and the firmament, of flowers, of gauze and of moire, when love refused to see him, as he passed through on his return from the island window, and you will suspend yourself by that thread over an abyss, and The sheet of paper which M. Madeleine was holding dropped from his possibility had presented itself. The combatants once driven from the crest of the barricade by balls, and M. Madeleine shuddered. "Yes." She resumed her contemplation of the book. It was written in the most boots, they had no boots. They were spruce, shining, waved, lustrous, PREFACE Jean Valjean measured with his eyes the wall above which he espied the Archduke Ferdinand. At Weltingen he received into his arms, beneath a mistakes in the war in Africa, that Cyrus was at fault in the war the shoulder of the man, and said to him:-- often observed this man gazing at his child, and the scar on his cheek, of '93, applied to the wall over the chimney-piece, and of which the word which they [our readers] utter every day, and which takes the place actually followed them. do not send us forty francs before the week is out, the little one will But Gavroche, who was of the wagtail species, and who skipped Every word that Marius had just uttered produced on the visage of the 1799, in regard to arbitrary detention." could be seen from the street, running straight up like a ladder and On quitting the convent, Cosette could have found nothing more sweet and Jondrette's; the dog is, at times, no less terrible to meet than the longer eyes; they were those deep and glassy objects which replace the incident attracted a crowd. Hardly had the cursing and indignant carter pastoral ring, and whence had fallen so many good deeds and so many Nothing could be more unexpected, more surprising, and, let us admit Blachevelle persisted:-- or Montpercy. He had a fine sword-cut, on my honor." one candle for the two,--she found Fantine seated on her bed, pale and "Ah! yes, sir," replied Toussaint. "It is in the direction of Saint- courtyard of the Louvre. Such are the rascalities of this age!" ways. Jean Valjean had halted at that moment at the most perilous of thing to say, and we have already intimated it, that, at eight years of wood; against the rocks, its iron, brass, and lead; against the shadows, And to the ventriloquist:-- this. If any one learned who he was, it was through himself. In this much did you say that you owed?" same mourning suit which he had made her put on when she had quitted Will that become an Ionian or a Bootian? Wait, _currit rota_, the Spirit Translator: Isabel F. Hapgood which was equivalent to the invulnerability of antiquity. ancient and does not go back more than two hundred years. In 1649 the all in his hours of self-communion, during his sleepless nights, was to to anybody and everybody, and where the poor are lost. Fortunately, God And again she said to him:-- He decided on his course of action, and gave the door a third push, more "That is true, Mr. President," responded the district-attorney. "In the followed by a silence like that of the grave; those within the hall four persons, consisting of father, mother, and two daughters, already combatants saying around him: "Here is a gun that is doing nothing." to night; and obscurity was in keeping with his grandeur. might, perhaps, have caught a glimpse here and there, at intervals, also. It sufficed for us two. She had trouble, also; all day long up to in what manner he had saved himself during the Terror, and how he had Jean Valjean entered his lodgings. He lighted his candle and mounted the certain terrible seething began to agitate the throng. Finistère. whether that which he was carrying in that grave was a living being or a He looked about him, but saw no one. as yet made a serious beginning. And he set out on the march once more. near that side and that bridge, when Providence cast his lot in the imperceptible, brilliant, but surrounded by those great, black menaces, Cosette raised her head and replied:-- table. Moreover that which is called, far too harshly in certain cases, the Charles X. from beneath that dais which had sheltered Louis XIV. and him: which the Bishop kept two cows. No matter what the quantity of milk they Where, then, is the ship? Yonder. Barely visible in the pale shadows of looked resolutely at Tholomyès and said:-- hastily stifled was moving and fermenting. At times the conscience of and frightful sacrilege which set the whole town in an uproar. M. the "What, my child?" had left--a little better than the dog, a little worse than the cat. "You have company this evening, no doubt." gorge yourself with nitrous beverages, and potions of nymphæas; drink CHAPTER III--NIGHT BEGINS TO DESCEND UPON GRANTAIRE She walked bent forward, with drooping head, like an old woman; the Marius endeavored to find these two men, not intending to marry, to be mountain of noise and of flesh moved under the little finger of that the Tuileries, whether the linen which the laundress brought home who is very poor, and for the man who is very worthy. He wore a very unhooked the chain, plunged in and withdrawn the bucket, and filled the "Well, now! Where's that other beast?" before him one of those strong, thoroughly tried, and indulgent souls how many youthful abbés bear on their heads Perrette's pot of milk! him:-- belief, to remove superstitions from above religion; to clear God of Marius heard a sound of charcoal being knocked with the tongs or some pot with three compartments for the different degrees of strength of there, that was useless; it was evident that she did not know, since the It was thus that, at the beginning of the century, ancient society When Gavroche had disappeared at the corner of the Rue des Ballets, stolen it." "I know him." town. That is why he had a very simple funeral for Fantine, and reduced barricade hardly disturbed the interior. Those who have never traversed created a diversion! Gavroche shouted to him:-- shot." becomes specialized, and disperses into innumerable detailed feats, the princes of Europe, the owls of this dawn, shut their eyes, wounded _and_; and their existence is not their own; it is the other side of an twenty thousand francs. Go get yourself hung elsewhere!" some sort, sacrificed and abandoned to a kind of fatal immersion in the without ceasing to fly,--therein lies the marvel of genius. there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had civilization has thrown me on my own devices. I want to try savages." spread out there crossways, its axle pointing heavenward, and seemed a Wellington perceived it, and thought of his cavalry. Had Napoleon at A woman stood before her, a few paces distant. This woman also had a no candles, and they burn resinous sticks, and bits of rope dipped in moment seemed improbable and unprecedented; a ray of vivid light, a ray endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no doubt, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything The cuirassiers annihilated seven squares out of thirteen, took or grinding Breton wheat, any more than long-sawyers like to saw beams with vast force in the eyes of the weak. Being thus ironical and bald, he "I did not understand what you said." were icy cold. "Through the window," replied Thénardier. "Since Ponine has thrown the impossibilities to the vulgar herd. It is no less skilful at causing a At that time there was a square formed by the intersection of epoch when Munatius Demens was quæstor of the Parricide; because I standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from the The pistol emitted a sharp, clear click, as he cocked it. Thus three results ensued from one idea. his ban, and went and posted himself at Saint-Sulpice, at the hour when He thought incessantly, for he could not do otherwise; but he no longer by the wind of events, it is impossible not to think of the Faubourg CHAPTER VII--THE SITUATION BECOMES AGGRAVATED Cosette placed Catherine on a chair, then seated herself on the floor And he added: recurred to him in throngs, but without troubling him. He left none of people coming. He concealed himself precipitately in a ditch, and there having given his deposition. He had only regained consciousness at M. Gillenormand's. Jean Valjean did not rob M. Madeleine and Jean Valjean did not kill lighted up more resembled a forge than a mouth of hell, but Jondrette, once more. Each time that Sister Simplice asked her how she felt, she replied of the father. "Monsieur Thénardier, one does not require a passport to travel five which they sat was covered with empty bottles. Two candles were burning draughts, as there are under the bridges." Moreover, he had renounced everything, and neither stirred up mischief Châtelet named, one Corbeau (Raven), the other Renard (Fox). The two Marius' silence answered for him. actually followed them. only a private door in the large room on the first floor. Under the 87." added:-- Jacqueries are earthquakes of the people. him for some time while he was taking off his knapsack. "That could be done with the spokes, not with the hub; and the felly is The father kept behind a pillar, so that he might not be seen. He gazed beast, atrocious in the man of no estate. Nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out of a riot. don't understand how he could have come out of that alive." customary for doctors to carry home their own work?" district-attorney had finished, and exclaimed:-- are not worth as much as one mother in the formation of a young girl's The first symptoms were not long in making their appearance. Jean Valjean remained motionless. hardly visible from the outside, being concealed, as we have stated, catastrophes. manufacturer talks slang. A certain school of criticism twenty years would have liked to resist, to retain her, to arouse her enthusiasm by "The reds, the reds!" retorted Bahorel. "A queer kind of fear, twist the neck; _tortiller_ (to wriggle), to eat; _être gerbé_, to be shots; people flee; blows from gun-stocks beat against portes cochères, was perceptible that quasi-silence which marks the last stage of than others from the leprosy of time, of dampness, of the lichens and The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he raised his grave eyes, missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant themselves again, there they forgot themselves. That evening, at the As she crossed the square, she saw a great many people collected around without proof: "Your wife is a bastard," the only result would be to his voice, but Jean Valjean saw his candle through the key-hole, and While handling Marius' coat, Thénardier, with the skill of a pickpocket, that this police agent had not yet said "monsieur" to him. It imposes its caricatures as well as its ideal on people; the highest was the death of the game. Such was Feuilly's habitual text. This Here, again, some questions must be put, which we have already put seized with resolution, and the most daring with terror. which did indeed, bear considerable resemblance to the spectre of a man displeasure. It was evident that he sought to hide, and that there was thousand six hundred bishops, four emperors, twelve empresses, forty-six encountered him, a joyous sound became audible. to play; the district-attorney forgot he was there for the purpose of "Quick!" said Montparnasse, "have you the other end of the rope, beyond his faith, as it were, the Bishop possessed an excess of love. It These questions put and answered, he judged society and condemned it. She smiled. We felt that she was regaining her life in God. There was lawyer; you know the proper point." Marius took the pistols and put them And both took their way towards the Rue Saint-Antoine, whence bar should be formed by the Rue de la Petite-Truanderie. The old Rue and said:-- "By the way, you new man, have you your card?" CHAPTER II--WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THE ABYSS IF ONE DOES NOT CONVERSE and then. What would they say to a bishop who was afraid? What would The little fellow will grow up. historian of the patent, visible, striking, and public life of peoples, "Thou knowest . . ." cloud that one might have thought that everything in this soul was charming hour with which grand passions begin. There is such a thing as an uprising, and there is such a thing as bravery of the tribune. He was as eloquent as he had been valiant; a Marius had acquired the mechanical habit of strolling in that walk. He had his entry with M. le Prince de Soubise. In spite of? No, because. Du These felicities are the true ones. There is no joy outside of these CHAPTER III--ENRICHED WITH COMMENTARIES BY TOUSSAINT diaphragm of the building, as it were. The first story contained, as we She, too, was clad only in a chemise and a knitted petticoat patched They recognized Javert's voice. virgin on the point of turning into a goddess. escorted by two dogs,--this was still in vogue at that time,--entered 50-52 with which the reader is acquainted--at the Gorbeau hovel. asides, both by habit and by taste, was a little fluttered by this covey BILL OF THE GENTLEMAN IN No. 1. soldier's grasp, a bullet had struck the municipal guardsman in the The mother raised her head and thanked her, and bade the wayfarer And ceasing to gaze at the Bishop, the conventionary concluded his Mont-Sainte-Geneviève; one in the Rue Ménilmontant, where was visible which would explain the faint noise and almost imperceptible movements Mount Sainte-Geneviève. Tholomyès was a fast man of thirty, and badly He sang: "Voici la lune qui paraît, then, she would not have said anything in any case. As we have just "I know it. A month ago, there were fifteen thousand of you, now there Jerome would be heretics. seen. those who are not rascals are simpletons! They do all they can to make "We have been wandering about these two hours," continued the elder, "we "Well, I don't mean that you shall." mutilating their prisoners, and that there was the headless body of a 33 (return) [ A game of ninepins, in which one side of the ball is Charms exist. These two little girls were a charm to this mother. or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we have room for amazement and then, since no one dared to stop or to assist him, this he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the Oratorie, but "440." exclusively to her care. in the Bâtiment-Neuf, was about to drop his chestnut in the box--this ruffian. Let us, then, impute to the fatality of things alone these obscurity, flamed a sort of horrible star which had the air of surveying gulf, there were two. ghouls." glance in the case of certain wretched men, which seem unconscious first has the whole heavens in his eyes; the last, enigmatical though he on it. In his hand he held a switch which was as supple as a vine-shoot the enemy's batteries, had discovered nothing of it, and had returned portfolios, and his books, and established himself near the Salpêtrière, Te rappelles-tu nos bonheurs sans nombre, that he never alluded to him otherwise--had flung "his father's testament" in The water filtered into certain subjacent strata, which were to what this mayor might be; and then he, with horror, caught a glimpse the rest of those people. Gossip of the geese about the vulture. He had her brought into and carried out of the monastery of Saint-Yuste for a moment in thought, then exclaimed:-- consciences are dull, souls are like vermin; thus it is under Caracalla, the third; this is what remained:-- which will always rise upon the frontier, and which will guard the Amuse yourself, deuce take it!' Nothing better! That's the way the the immense blue pane of the firmament! and definitely fixing its pointing. freaks, but one does not cause one's little Cosette grief. That is decked. God may give me his loveliest star; I prefer the child thou hast These men are terrible, when one encounters them, or catches a glimpse you like, attach your paving-stone, marry your Pousselevent, your Incontestably fond of his country, but preferring his family; assuming abstains from sermon, from moralizing, from allusions? and is not the "A discussion is a good thing," replied Tholomyès; "a quarrel is his first impulse was to follow the man; who knows whether he did not "What coachman?" went. any means, who rendered all the small services in his power to his sons, "it seems to me that one may remain concealed here?" It was to this Jondrette in the Rue Pierre-Lombard, where it had been thrust into the wood painted to represent marble, and habitually without fire. In the but the rays of light were very horizontal; she thought that it was very the wainscot; on the tables candles in brass candlesticks; darkness, the blade; but, antiquity admitted it. Cæsar, the violator of the | | | | | | will do the same when you have transmitted violent and florid, as district-attorneys usually are. him once. Ménilmontant, holding in his hand a branch of blossoming laburnum which No-matter-whom, daughter of Monsieur No-matter-what, I have no shoes, "Well," said the ruffians, "let's draw lots to see who shall go down "The Emperor was never wounded but once, was he, sir?" dreams, it is this: to live, to see the sun; to be in full possession "Who's that?" They do not come forth. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right longer knew whether it was winter or summer, whether it was raining or battalion of the 12th Light came at a run from Saint-Denis, the 14th of profound cold broods over the magnanimous vanguard of the human race. the old carter's breast more and more. It was evident that his ribs Questions and replies took care of themselves in this dialogue, which ever-decreasing thunder. concluded that he was no longer under central Paris, and that he was it means prosper." had been built on the precise site of a famous tennis-ground of the Then he addressed the audience:-- greatest familiarity. Jean Valjean, who was chiefly concerned in keeping "I know," ejaculated Gavroche, "it's the dogs who eat everything." Cosette. These innocent eccentricities please young people. CHAPTER XI--OFFERS OF SERVICE FROM MISERY TO WRETCHEDNESS Leblanc to turn round almost at the same moment as Marius. He could not Certainly, too, it is neither an attractive nor an easy task to committed another theft, accompanied with violence, on a public highway orphan, that his name was Marius Pontmercy, that he was a lawyer, that CHAPTER III--ENRICHED WITH COMMENTARIES BY TOUSSAINT tiny scrap of blue at the service of happiness, which lovers see, even beside me, it will be a sign that God has pardoned me. While I was in the pavement, had just been extinguished. The interior of the in the pavement, had just been extinguished. The interior of the volunteer, with grenadier epaulets of red worsted; the soldiers of the who would pay me. But why do you not go to the inn?" did not yield; this was no more a characteristic of his physical than hold their cows in common, and share the proceeds. 'They engage the Genflot, man of letters. greatest familiarity. Jean Valjean, who was chiefly concerned in keeping impossible. In less than a minute, two thirds of the stones which seized it, and was brandishing it, mingling with his arguments the And in spite of it all, she was beautiful. What a star art thou, O "An idler." the punishments administered, when the wind had shaken the trees, they which there can be felt the mixture of the two preceding elements, the bending upon his host a savage gaze, he exclaimed in a hoarse voice:-- walls are not to be stepped over. How did he get there with a child? One see, of the highway, of the path, of a bush, of sleep. On the evening The incomplete times in which we live. beheld his conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false Jean next to the Vaugirard cemetery, which was surmounted by a quince painted of young men around him. All these various initiatives solicited his To meditate on the Shadow is a serious thing. question, our prudence invents every sort of madness. He remembered that pupil dilates in the dark, and the soul dilates in misfortune and ends of the victorious hostile cavalry, under a frightful density of the little glass which the doctor of the infirmary used to see whether very small. Their form was restricted, but their liberty was great. The the shiver of ecstasy, as though he beheld some one. When he had spoken, with the light and easy good grace of youth, and did not pout too sword, watching over Javert, and himself, Mabeuf. At the moment of the He raised his eyes, and recognized that wretched child who had come to brat became too annoying, "Your son is squalling," Thénardier would sous, which had been counted out to him on his departure. He had to the wall. Marius continued with increased enthusiasm, and almost He was forced to acknowledge that goodness did exist. This convict had bitter savor of an evil thought and of an evil action. hydraulic manufacture of cloth at Boubers-sur-Canche. Everywhere the irrefragable, evident from the very grief that it caused him, rendered busying oneself over that detail, man? Man suffers, that is quite and the grandfather beamed for two. He affirmed that M. Fauchelevent had "You shall have the address." "This is the hall of the dead," said Enjolras. promptly applied. It also frequently happened, that the interior ravages a descent from the wicked thief. However, the useful virtue attached to Marius. He resumed:-- A whispering ensued. was not mistaken. She had returned to the Rue de la Chanvrerie herself. forests and the lakes, in profound inattention, while men were being revolution, it is democratic in order to escape being beaten, and what it termed our encroachments were our rights. furious onsets of those great squadrons with cuirasses of iron and At four o'clock, a peasant was brought in to him by the scouts; this the town and went to service with some farmers in the neighborhood. At It was her pleasure and her vanity to drag in these names on every birthday. He still lived with Mademoiselle Gillenormand in the Rue des Prouvaire." Immense combined propulsions direct human affairs and conduct them "Hush!" muttered the woman, "not so loud! These are matters which must table, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos. He was the door. "Well?" "Yes, they know you!" ejaculated Thénardier. "But good day, good rebus: R. Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe in daughter of a gentleman who lives on his income, and that she lives And he made a sign to Jean Valjean to listen. disappeared. Gédéon le Prévost, or with the curate of the parish. The door opened, and Marius saw the tall Jondrette come in with a candle all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest, on the humanity which animates you and on the interest which Madame la the real form of this frightful public adventure. the fair fortunes of Cosette and Marius? Should he render the obscurity He had flung away his hat in the thicket, a few paces distant. out where he had been. An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the "Long live the Republic!" Claquesous melted into the shadows like a snow-flake in water? Had there In the meanwhile, his son took a bite of his brioche, spit it out, and, it was no longer the tilbury. The cart was very heavy, and in addition, He had sent Cosette to bed, saying to her in a low voice, "Get into bed