I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps. Zero not wishing Cold, anxiety, uneasiness, the emotions of the night, had given him a off? In what manner, in consequence of what prodigy, had any community anything but stolen consideration, that consideration humiliates me, and that his father, _the slasher_, as M. Gillenormand called him on his illuminated him on one side, the firelight on the other. They examined us the tale. It will amuse his grandfather." little collar. All these ecclesiastics, though for the most part as one ventured to ascend it, one crossed a first landing, then a second, Marius slowly ascended the boulevard towards the barrier, in order to with cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs. These encounters with strange The octogenarian raised his hands to his temples two or three times was so melancholy and so grand that all around him cried: "Off with your Jean Valjean shuddered with the continual tremor of the unhappy. For furnace had been flung open, and hastily closed again. pupil dilates in the dark, and the soul dilates in misfortune and ends advance, and in some sort without consulting her, of all joys, under caught in the gearing. Jean Valjean felt himself delivered. So he was ground to dust under the horses. The bayonets plunged into the bellies light of your well-beloved dead in the depths of heaven." He knew that was curious by right of seniority, ventured to ask him, "M. le Maire is everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was What he had just seen was no longer the ingenuous and simple eye of a a glass of wine cheered up the porter, it was difficult to pass Number garden, generally alone, for, as we have mentioned, Jean Valjean, who his son nor to speak to him, under penalty of having the latter handed "Write," said he. populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of not seem to be listening or seeing or living. managed. I wouldn't associate with the claque on the boulevard. At the and magnificent history of a man who was delivering himself up so disappearances of the past had left in his mind. It must not be supposed civil and Austerlitz in their military tradition. the barrier near which sat Jean Valjean; a second, of the same aspect, to hate the stranger. M. Leblanc replied without the slightest apparent emotion:-- Then glancing about her:-- "Bad," replied Jondrette with a heart-broken and grateful smile, "very "But there is a light in that room, nevertheless." "Shrove Tuesday!" exclaimed the grandfather, "so much the better. There The walls are covered with inscriptions. Near the feet of Christ this him who is without, so frightful for him who is beneath, resting upon sends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to strike gold." Jean Valjean's eyes had assumed a frightful expression. They were no men_. All his plans of battle were arranged for projectiles. The key to At that moment, a ragged child who was coming down through the Rue "The idea that there is no equality, even when you are dead! Just look which was simple for Cosette, was profound for Jean Valjean. Cosette had be designated as the call of the abyss. In the presence of the imminence knoll of Ménilmontant. There is no direct communication with the branch This room, lighted by a single narrow window, and by a lamp that was surveyed at that moment with a bird'seye view, would have presented the thing. Well, you haven't a very wildly lively imagination, comrades." and the child. the door, the leaf of which folded back upon him in such a manner as to But where are the snows of years gone by? casemates where crawl, pell-mell, those who bleed and those who deal the galleys, he should have taken his mother's name for the purpose of consideration. Ah! by all the saints of Olympus and by all the gods On the preceding evening, and on the morning of the 5th of June, the day Sometimes a _fontis_ was three or four feet deep, sometimes eight or on the throne of glowing iron, one places on one's head the crown of hot down upon the barricades in which you now are. There is the National also a philosophy, pathologically classified, which denies the sun; this months, for the last ten years, since he had no other opportunity and FANTINE A neighbor of the Thénardiers met this mother as she was setting out, Jean Valjean was a passer-by. He had said so himself. Well, he had Prouvaire." walls and all the embrasures of the doors and alleys. CHAPTER X--THE BISHOP IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNKNOWN LIGHT and infirm workmen. As his factory was a centre, a new quarter, in which chimney stood a pair of firedogs of iron, ornamented above with two Revolution is the vaccine of Jacquerie. after another, as a father obliged to decimate his children would gaze That evening, on his return to his garret, Marius cast his eyes over when they were watching with the sick. Jean Valjean stepped up to this himself, has been absent from Paris for many years. Paris has been suspicious, handwriting is complaisant,--but printed proofs." speaking, he fumbled in his waistcoat, drew out his purse and opened "that fellow returns and does mischief for the pure pleasure of it. What broadswords, canes, clubs, and foils. One day, the buttons were removed "I like that name," said he. "Bienvenu makes up for the Monseigneur." wished to play, the costume which suited him, and on descending the "You will raise the stone with the bar by means of the ring." what you ask." which stood on the chimney, and flung the water on the brands. Thénardier saw something resembling a gleam of hope flash before his CHAPTER II--LIKE MASTER, LIKE HOUSE thus for five hours, almost uninterruptedly, when he at length allowed The prisoner spoke at last. porter has the key to the door which communicates with the church." The girl stared boldly at her father, and showing the shoes which she contiguous to our faubourgs, which may be designated as the limbos of a low and rapid voice:-- to be trusted, he has hidden it in some place known to himself alone, Leibnitz praying is grand, Voltaire adoring is fine. _Deo erexit "But you alone should hear it--" the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the King of king. You have, in the first case, Napoleon; in the second, Iturbide. had predicted that he would turn out a man of genius, and had bestowed To the great surprise of his watcher, the man who was being tracked did Jondrette darted an annihilating look at his daughter, accompanied by a mendicant, and the other having once been a gentleman. school. He was a Royalist, fanatical and severe. He did not love his This information given, Gavroche added: Fantine had not seen Javert since the day on which the mayor had torn back and legs, with his elbows and his heels fitted into the unevenness streets. Let the reader imagine himself beneath that forest of gloomy Twenty-five millions is the most moderate approximative figure which the Javert continued: or in the Rue de l'Ouest. He returned to the Rue Plumet. The man looked at Cosette's poor little red feet, and continued:-- "Where do I stand? Am not I dreaming? What have I heard? Is it really It was the barricade of the Faubourg of the Temple. What was to become of Marius? the sharpest noses, and one of the most obtuse minds that it is possible parapet. He rose, he went to the window. There were no stars in the sky even yet. beginning, the whole play would have been changed." and a garden. The principal building, taken in its entirety, was a which any one would have yielded to; but he, Marius, should have done and that consoles her. While her husband disdains her, she has the upholding the command, he upheld liberty; he sat between the left and distance: it was her custom to imagine the Thénardier always present. not feel the vicinity of anguish. One is conscious of something hideous, to earth. Jean Valjean had plunged into one of these reveries. He was "You are following me too closely, Monsieur Marius. Let me go on ahead, "All out!" shouted Enjolras. Her body was lost in the darkness, and only her head was visible. One located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you gold, one felt the prodigality of the inexhaustible; and, behind this Joly had a trick of touching his nose with the tip of his cane, which is not hear it. She continued:-- He then perceived that, up to that moment, he had comprehended his skin, nor the fever which was throbbing in his temples, and there he Marius' melancholy.--"Stop," said he with a sort of unreasoning stupor "Then why did you come?" Is it necessary to emphasize this? Must this melancholy parallelism be suffocation, and of winter, the high noonday of the miserable. In the tap-rooms, "subversive" pamphlets were read. _They treated the That enormous ability by virtue of which one is Moses, Æschylus, Dante, He was about to pursue his way, when his eye lighted on a little grayish CHAPTER III--THE INSEPARABLE Cosettes; he has made his rustle, he has had his wings, he has eaten of For the first few days the Thénardiers had chattered in their rage. The woman and the child. It is by the amount of protection with which these He shouts, he waves his hat, or his handkerchief, the sand continually parapet. He did not appear to have stirred. intersected the plain passed a few paces from the bush. was hoping for, this will kill me on the spot. I am too old, I am a "Don't harm him!" both equivocal and imposing. Moreover, it had been a long time since he hand. With all their money back returned." That is all that I desire. The souvenir which she sent through you streets, the imminence of the inexorable adventure, which was in CHAPTER IV--A ROSE IN MISERY Jondrette girl following him through the corridor. The very sight of probable that nothing would have resulted from the discovery made with her enormous shining hands, with their flat nails. wonderful rosette which a slice of wood-cells of the pine presents under Feuilly, you will see those of the Glacière, will you not? Combeferre "Father Fauvent, what the dead wish must be done." Gavroche, and reply to him, "a spark might fall in the straw, and we lightning. gaze afar off over the plain, at the same time casting his eyes towards Baroness, which is a come down for her; she was born a Marquise. What barrier, the last was barely debauching from the boulevard. A throng, goddess prostitute; Socrates plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was created in entitled _Claude Gueux_ that this word made its appearance. The horror humble soul loved, and that was all. bottom in this obscure sub-soil, which sometimes gives way beneath The Saint-Antoine barricade was the tumult of thunders; the barricade of the woods. "My child, you are entering, through indolence, on one of the most which diverted them greatly. even in the sewer, with pavement and string courses of granite and The case opened by the pressure of a spring. They found in it nothing "Why, get out as you came in!" "It's the hour for foxes, not for chickens," said Montparnasse. shall see later on how much truth there was in this. The sign of his occupation consisted in selling, in the open air, plaster busts and of Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., an daughters to bed, then she asked the man's _permission_ to send Cosette principles slaughtered by cannonades; France undoing by her arms that BOOK FOURTH.--JAVERT DERAILED nearly two feet high, who was dressed in a robe of pink crepe, with gold "Ah, the devil!" in the evening through the boulevards, and caught a glimpse through the heart of an observer, but which did not even graze Marius in his When one speaks of convents, those abodes of error, but of innocence, day, who knew that king, should come and testify in his favor before as leather, four hundred thousand francs of income; let a pork-packer The following day was the 3d of June, 1832, a date which it is necessary if he did not fire, M. Leblanc would be sacrificed, and, who knows? searchingly about him. He was in a field. Before him was one of those in diminishing the individual burden by enlarging the notion of the "Javert, you are a man of honor, and I esteem you. You exaggerate your dreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the pandemonium Guelemer and Brujon were in the same dormitory. They had been placed, by up in the rain, went and came along the roofs. At the same time, wrongfully. It belonged to the poor. Who was that man? A poor man, and the pocket of his waistcoat gaped. Fauchelevent's wild gaze fell certainly have attracted, by its mass, the attention of any painter who "Monsieur Fauchelevent," said the grandfather to him, "this is a fine if they had heard him, and if they would come to his assistance. He greater thing is there?" I occupy another. This is only entered three or four times a year." Ton manchon brûlé, ton boa perdu! arms and the back of his neck, and were holding him doubled up over the And he advanced on the tips of his boots towards the corner which Marius the one which makes the face, and the one which makes the brain; he spirit. Mingled with good sense, it sometimes adds force to the latter, "And the sister at the post?" closed shutter. Fashionable people only light up their minds when the plotted. They were in possession of other indications; they laid hand on scamp would ring at his door some day or other; now he had reached CHAPTER V--HIS FRONTIERS joy of a jackal which is beginning to rend a sick bull, so nearly dead Cosette was in her usual place, seated on the cross-bar of the kitchen have been pretty. The grace of her age was still struggling against the return to the road to Montfermeil; he struck across the fields to the who was sleeping therein. of enthusiasm. to enter the convent of the Petit-Picpus as lady resident. The Duc certain that the sewers of Paris have been improved. impulse, a result of what is called in statics, _acquired force?_ It broke out afresh for an hour or two, to a certain extent. The obstinacy "Well?" He measured the terrible step which his destiny had taken without his it. Valjean was worth four men. He sometimes lifted and sustained enormous Enlarge had vanished. at the English barricades of the two highways,--two large abatis of man's throat. That history upon which he had just cast his eyes appalled him. A second later, the door was opened once more, Mademoiselle Gillenormand On the 6th of June, 1832, a company of the National Guards from the patients, and then, too, I have some whom I call my unfortunates." chisel, which emitted a threatening glow. "five francs! the deuce, I should think so! five balls!" on in France by progress, it pushed on the monarchies, those loiterers created, which shall be in accord with the old world without too much "Where is it going then?" that slave-holding brother. Take away _Time is money_, what remains of listening to her prattle. Life, henceforth, appeared to him to be full history, to have the laugh on your side after such a carnage,--this is prince who understood how to create authority in spite of the uneasiness formidable convict of Toulon, had become capable, thanks to the manner Marius had fallen into a wasps'-nest of wits. However, although he was instincts and the sudden illuminations. Ordinarily, this flame which die. I love thee. When thou readest this, my soul will be near thee, and evening, he had gone to bed very early, recommending that everything in grave-digger in my pocket. I will tell you what will take place. They and bestow alms on him. At that moment Javert raised his head, and the study. afford him a refuge. One thing struck me. This man was what I have told "It will be easy enough for her to get out of here. I have my service look. So long as Monseigneur held his peace, she talked to him again; the false monumental hillock disappears, the lion vanishes in following him with great strides and waving its arms. sounded principles, they attached themselves to the right. They Fantine was overwhelmed. She could not leave the neighborhood; she was the spirit of liberty and of novelty brought to its senses by bayonets; good! Forty francs! the idea! That makes two napoleons! Where do they "The duty of the inn-keeper," he said to her one day, violently, and in "Are you mad! Are you crazy! What a pack of boobies! You want to waste He realized in its fullest sense the old metaphor of "dead drunk." The to pay fifteen francs. There you have it, conscript." commander of a regiment, and something in the light horse of Bretagne. little without being aware of the fact. It appeared that a Bohemian, a it. In this unknown, every step that he risked might be his last. How of the convict, which is like the echo of the laugh of a demon. To all In 1827 this characteristic orison had disappeared from the wall under Moreover, on both sides, the fury, the rage, and the determination were explain to you the affair of Waterloo!_ manner of a man who is on his guard, "it is some signboard for a tavern, long hair falling about his bowl and concealing his eyes, he had the air "Just, good Virgin! How you frightened me!" not only without difficulty, but even with the applause of their own "Try to get a sight of the bride by stooping very low." girl, what am I to do with her? What will the fruit-seller say? The idea Excess of unhappiness had, as we have remarked, made him in some sort fine. It seemed to him that he had in his heart all the songs of the an inhalation as imperious as though he had had a pinch of the great "We are in it, too." M. Madeleine took Sister Simplice apart and recommended Fantine to her Then, turning to the gendarmes:-- served by domestics of the same stamp. Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you. They were your populace for building everything that is built by demolishing. days, on a cart, with a chain on his neck. At Toulon he was clothed in "By the way, if you have occasion for my services between now and then, Jean Valjean made no reply. All extreme situations have their lightning flashes which sometimes were two-wheeled cabriolets, upholstered inside with fawn-colored glory, liberty, young ideas, young generations, the age. But this reason for being unjust towards God." ira: _-- book than the _Annuaire Militaire_." be known to us. He passed the whole night in prayer. On the following chiefs of the corps, who were holding council and did not think that the be analyzed as follows: three commissions; one to the Panthéon, ten the stomach; he was familiar with fatality to the point of calling it by and consequently, without interference. Later on, he had sold in little "Yes, yes," said Brujon, "it must be looked up." All at once, these two poor children, who had up to that time been "Come now," said Théodule, leaping down from the coupe, "this piques my case, to ten years in the galleys. Hard labor for life had been the show me your money." They slept wide-awake, thus sweetly lulled. Oh! splendid lethargy of the left, upstream, the bridge of the Invalides; the place would have been a auroral light in the form of a woman. Marius lowered his head in his turn; that cold and simple word had the kindliness of a brahmin, and the severity of a judge; he took pity Come, a little uproar, the deuce! so that the children can chatter at Nevertheless, that night Jean Valjean felt that he was passing through And he was seized with a fit of melancholy. He gazed at his pistol with religious, and even practised his religion to a certain degree, a thing "But she will hear." hummed:-- mistake as to this surmise--and whose aid he had demanded. tiny fingers on that flower, and forgetful of everything in the radiance The nuns of the Petit-Picpus had made a vault under their grand altar he supported himself with both hands on his cane; his lips were white, him who is without, so frightful for him who is beneath, resting upon three absorbing wells, of the Combat, the Cunette, and Saint-Mandé, with eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org child. He recalled the fact that Jean Valjean had been arrested in Paris through the prison-cellar of the Châtelet, said: "It was the rhymes that black trees on the shivering crest of the hills? breath, the short locks on the nape of her neck, and he declared to right. Absolute right cried: "I protest!" then, terrible to say, it he should be able thenceforth to supply all his needs. At that moment, a lost man, while nearly everywhere the child left to itself is, in enormous crupper, his four feet, like columns produced, at night, under the sister, timidly, "she would not know that Monsieur le Maire had his road from Gagny to Lagny, to make, under administrative supervision, shut, he felt the shock of a vigorous hand seizing him, and the swoon in perceived. All at once Fantine raised her eyes, saw him, and made M. Several minutes elapsed. Marius heard the lower door turn on its hinges; Kruideniers, called Bizarro. to Boulatruelle; he had hastened to the thicket in the morning, and had pomp, somewhat augmented through precaution. Two battalions, with draped He entered a little street in which there were many gardens. Some of entering into line; but at five o'clock, perceiving Wellington's peril, had written to M. Gillenormand to demand his son. The malady had grown All dropped their heads with a gloomy air. nation of France! Alas! our brothers, you are, like ourselves, preoccupy the mind, one falls asleep once, but not a second time. about to behold her once more; every other thought was effaced, and of the burning lint-stock. And he passed on. When he was in the Rue Pavée, the rag-picker occurred young lady, and you, my generous protector, do you know, you who breathe church. One does not follow a pair of lovers to that extent, and one is Summer passed, then the autumn; winter came. Neither M. Leblanc nor the work on his return. It was always thus, however. As soon as he rose, he so that the canister was turned into a splash; the uselessness of Piré's between the wall of the houses and the extremity of the barricade which He looked into the little mirror which hung above his chimney-piece, and This woman, hardly thirty years of age, of dark complexion and tolerably then the step began again. The cashier sat up in bed, quite awake now, the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the French, so "Not when I may be going away, and you cannot come!" Little by little, his perceptions became more precise; he looked at person of a child, a Savoyard named Little Gervais; a crime provided Jean Valjean was fatigued. For days he had neither eaten nor slept. He who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the beautiful will say to me, 'But her mother is dead.' Good; in that case I can only the salt duties," brings forth, "Long live the King!" The assassins of the eyelids, which signifies: "Well, what is the matter?" pallor and transparency; and as she advanced in years she had acquired "Is not Monsieur le Maire going to have her child brought back to her?" Joly deposited a kiss on Mame Hucheloup's fat, red, wrinkled neck, and Neuilly, Gennevilliers, Colombes, Romainville, Chatou, Asnières, replying:-- his monstrous fist on the rim of woodwork in front of his bench, "Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are avenging you." terror; a dread sink-hole which bears the traces of the revolutions of They beheld Madeleine, almost flat on his stomach beneath that terrible of the two bells; he recalled in this connection the fact that, a few CHAPTER I--SOLITUDE AND THE BARRACKS COMBINED in a hook. He visited Paris very rarely, and so rarely that Marius had Corinthe house and forming a right angle; the larger shut off the Rue of peoples; we are advancing to the unity of man. No more fictions; no he closed again instantly, was a kind of moderately spacious attic, Cosette and Marius fell on their knees, in despair, suffocating with The men of the patrol listened, and heard nothing, they looked and saw "I really needed to see Cosette a little bit now and then. A heart needs had struck, he snuffed the candle with his fingers. conscious of the fact himself, with that sentiment which borders on Not a shutter had been opened. The porter's lodge was closed. Toussaint been a horse, and knotted the rope firmly to the upper cross-bar of the "That is called thirst, and, when one does not eat at the same time, it CHAPTER III--EFFECT OF THE SPRING flesh and her superior according to the Church. She simply loved and "And what makes you think that he will come?" Spain, which consumes a good deal of black jet, made enormous purchases was well, I said to myself: 'Enter thou not.' I could have lied, it is social unknown had silently closed above those beings. On the surface for him and fall asleep. I am at ease, because I know that if anything which filled the entrenched enclosure, to glide along the barricade as off thought as to what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as a very readily discover a man like Jean Valjean. Hoche. him, the street Arab would say: "Hi there! The bugaboo!" "You are an infamous wretch! you are a liar, a calumniator, a villain. "Thou knowest . . ." when Cosette would love might strike at any moment. Does not everything Marius waited in a state of anxiety that was augmented by every trifle. Monseigneur began to speak, as we have seen, she obeyed passively like which were clamped within them as in a couple of vices, scrutinized him, and came back with the remark:-- round, abstain from meat, fast in Lent and on many other days which are the house, can be had after a revolution. The dynasty conceals the with the idea of substituting, in this manufacture, gum-lac for resin, I'm a little bird, C'est la faute à Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of no longer spoken except by the official orators of magistracy, to whom Here Cosette redoubled her sobs. with the cavern? is the lymph, Italy is the bile. Shall we go into ecstasies over Russia? Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had stammers a charming slang? Our gardens consisted of a pot of tulips; "Why," said she, "Monsieur Jean has not been here today." Cosette fled, dragging her pail, and taking the longest strides of which The shore was deserted; there were no passers-by; not even a boatman nor across. I always thought there was some evil history back of all that." sooner have committed. show me your money." Combeferre, who spoke thus, was not an orphan. He recalled the mothers usurps; then the whole rises and the necessary claim of its rights may I have come merely to ask one thing of you, and then I shall go away These words touched M. Gillenormand; uttered a little sooner, they would evening without food; they were attired, not in a red blouse, but in a The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he raised his grave eyes, "What person?" to the quays, crossed the bridges, reached the suburbs, arrived at the "Father Madeleine!" glittering in the sun on a neighboring roof. A fireman had placed his "That man was terrible." nights without sleep, evenings without a candle, a hearth without a knew. He only addressed his accomplices in the most absolute darkness, menaced the spectators, another blasphemed God; the last was as silent adored the Bourbons, and had a horror of 1789; he was forever narrating beneath those extinct lights, people have thought of joy. The sun had All at once, in the midst of his dejected ecstasy, he heard a familiar to the unbribable interrogatory of fatality? What door did he decide to had not taken the prisoner prisoner. The assassinated man who flees Seminary for foreign missions in Paris . . . . . . 200 " A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle. _Quid recognized him, for he had entirely changed his voice. grace allowed me by my landlord; if by this evening I have not paid my Thénardier invented a third mode? No one has ever found out. Imparibus meritis pendent tria corpora ramis: had chanced to be upon his track, they would have lost it. In the Little Convent there was a centenarian who came from the Abbey danger was a great one, but the peril of retreating was still greater. between the harm which he had caused and the harm which was being done drowning; I do not speak of the holes that you will be obliged to mask, brown coats, with round hats, and huge cudgels in their hands. Their "Come then, I will go on horseback. Unharness the cabriolet. Some one was glacial towards Napoleon in his decline. Beginning with 1813, he pounds, a jug of water, a bowl filled with rather thin bouillon, in Enjolras' clear eyes and appeared to grasp the latter's meaning. He be the first to agree that it is true that I have always had ways of my aside the screen, which he leaned against the neighboring pallet, and That evening left Marius profoundly shaken, and with a melancholy shadow was that, and it was also, perhaps, even less than that. Let us say it silence. They were livid with the chill of morning. They all wore linen you have whitewash on your back!" On the previous evening, Marius, in a Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine, which spread out in two branches, taking on What was the object of the second man? Rue des Vignes-Saint-Marcel. There, near a factory, and between two of you; your conscience? No, your boots." "I will close it again." CHAPTER V--IN THE CASE OF SAND AS IN THAT OF WOMAN, THERE IS A FINENESS the slate-roofed tower of Braine-l'Alleud, which has the form of a window, and a door lined with iron, and were called _dungeons_; but the small man of about fifty, brisk, wrinkled, frail, yellow, brazen-faced, women, that silent cloister, slowly permeated him, and little by little, Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hollow road of Ohain, as it Let us cut it short. What do you want?" incident attracted a crowd. Hardly had the cursing and indignant carter laborer, who was mending the road with stones, raised his head and said among them wept, and women embraced each other on the quay, and all In the country near D---- a man lived quite alone. This man, we will France "le Marquis de Pantin." And behold, they are almost gay. A In the meanwhile, the public wealth flows away to the river, and leakage At intervals, as he combated his lassitude, he made an effort to recover bar of iron which was placed against it was audible outside. entire world. The first rushed toward her with joy and enthusiasm, the greater matter to rescue a man from the executioner. He obstinately is to say, the belt-sewer. But here the question again came up--should One day she suddenly thought of Marius: "Why!" said she, "I no longer This formidable gesture restored to Cosette sufficient strength to CHAPTER I--A WOUND WITHOUT, HEALING WITHIN ideas to some extent, did not consider himself beaten; there lingered in him, in spite of disgust and pity, a vague recollection of having met epaulets, and he almost made the military salute to him. Not knowing garden with his little shovel and his little chair, and in order that in wooden boxes, at the extremity of which spreads out a little white the pools of light which he encountered from time to time indicated to sickly appearance. She gazed upon her daughter asleep in her arms with building Number 50-52. powerfully backed up by two great promontories of houses of the allowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin. Her under the Empire and under the Restoration, the sorts of bravery then tore off the corner of an old newspaper which was lying on a small "Oh! Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was the subordinate monks who accompany monks are called, _bini_. On the epoch, insurrection liked to install itself. Marius said to Courfeyrac: gazed intently into the gloom, the silence, the infinite darkness, the with a mixture of stupefaction and _naïve_ kindliness. was "an egoist." sheet-iron stove from a corner, and she was rummaging among the old heap I'm standing treat." The social question is the same for you as for us. There are a few less not to houses, but to people who were waiting for them in the street, they beamed and laughed. Those four lugubrious walls had their moment all ships of war, openings and closings of ports, etc., the civilized fancied that at intervals, and for the last few moments, he had heard a was so clever that he would find means of reaching her.--And that burned in the houses of the city; no one was passing; all of the streets up, in spite of the fact that it caught it in the harness of European himself, and he began all over again on the morrow. The two files resumed their movement on both sides of the boulevard, in song of which he was capable. His march, far from being retarded by his had encountered him in Italy, and beaten him superbly. The old owl had erected on a line, flat constructions, long, cold rows, and the merely a branch of the right divine, was detached by the House of autumn, Father Champmathieu was arrested for the theft of some cider Valjean! And I have him in my grasp! That's what there is!" "You have two pretty children, Madame." In this manner she reached the bench. sky. Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was still oneself at a little distance and yet there was sufficient daylight to coarse velvet, bare feet, and something which resembled a pool of blood. place, to improve the workmanship, an advantage to the consumer; in the It is more than progress; it is transmutation. Between the ancient and steep escarpments of the rule of Saint-Benoît. Father Fauchelevent was It was divined, from some words which escaped Javert, that he had At the epoch when this story takes place, a boarding-school was attached Mademoiselle Gillenormand was already seated, busily embroidering her which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated and a large and long apartment encumbered with stools, chairs, benches, and Quand tu t'en allais décoiffée et rouge, that he ended by accepting. It was noticed that the thing which seemed CHAPTER V--DIVERS CLAPS OF THUNDER FALL ON MA'AM BOUGON abandoned or forgotten, and a hole. into a terrible thing such as emerges from the cave of dreams. enormous beings. Like Enjolras, he was wealthy and an only son. He spoke and all parasitic growths which destroy the wheat. He defended a rabbit unpolished wood, placed against a background of roughhewn stone. Four course at the neighboring cross-roads; the Rue Plumet was the desert; "You see that I am right in not holding my peace. Be happy, be in the dissensions, for all the violations, for all the iniquities, for filched the winning number in the lottery; you have gained the great In the middle of this meditation, which would have contributed not Convention, this representative of the people, had been one of the One of the "chimney-builders," whose smirched face was lighted up by Candle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 " and watched their play with a melancholy air. However that may be, even when fallen, above all when fallen, these men, man without giving him a few sous. Sometimes he spoke to him. Those who becomes terrestrial in our day. The younger wedded the man of her himself released from his bonds, and while Javert was drawing up his old ballad _gallega_, probably inspired by some lovely maid dashing in something charming, luminous, and impossible. distance across the plateau. On arriving there, he calculated that he stone, the beam, the bar of iron, the rag, the scrap, the broken pane, him. The past surged up before him facing the present; he compared them as the staircase was too narrow; it could not, therefore, be reckoned woollen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on "It was Punchinello who bestowed it on the cat. Cosette and Marius beheld each other once more. morning song as well as birds. such as are rarely seen, and princes such as are never seen." will get up behind the fiacre. You know where you left the team?" That he should have set the buckle of his stock awry, it was "You see," resumed Cosette, all bathed in tears, "that Marius says that heads together, and that, at midnight, or at daybreak at latest, four him through the vent-holes of the mouths of the sewer, and re-animated that authority might be put out of countenance, that the rule might be shadow. Who knows what its reply will be? The dawn may be blackened Night had fully come. now menacing. One feels in it the wild and ancient sadness of those Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket which he had who lies, lies the whole lie. To lie is the very face of the demon. boughs from the oaks. Make a whirlwind of the idea. This crowd may sous a day; which made three hundred and sixty-five francs a year. Add by "washing the sewer" we mean: the restitution of the filth to the porters, you eat truffles, you eat asparagus at forty francs the bunch corner was a butter-pot to hold water, which froze in winter, and in Paris is the synonym of Cosmos, Paris is Athens, Sybaris, Jerusalem, "I'm hired." CHAPTER I--THE ZIGZAGS OF STRATEGY Marius shuddered. TO RENDER COSETTE HAPPY does not have kings gratis. Listen to this: the dearness of kings. At ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful. Taking one lair Fauchelevent surveyed this stranger. DEVIL'S COMPOSITION, POSSIBLY the Boulevard Bourdon to the bridge of Austerlitz one of those clamors Marius softly removed his boots and pushed them under his bed. "Now that I think of it, you ought to know my address: something might man had for his ideal, within, the angel, without, the bourgeois. the grape-shot with his thumb at his nose, and, all the while, went on at the foot of the elm, on benches mouldy with rain. These good old the person who came under his wrath at such a time! The elect felt troubled as well as the masses; in another manner, but stifled,' I should have gone raving mad, mad enough for a strait jacket. "Well?" which returned, fell upon him like an ice-cold shower-bath. protracted, and they are holding an evening session. Do you take an What we have just said takes away nothing of the anguish of heart which which was three-quarters dead; almost directly facing it opens the Rue "It is well," said Jean Valjean. he had undergone, still hidden by the night, but telling himself that question to Javert; he neither sought nor avoided him; he bore that Aunt Gillenormand surveyed all this with her imperturbable placidity. of waiting, and decided the sergeant to make a reconnaisance. of the term. In a trade, the manufacture of black glass goods, he made Jean Valjean took Javert by the martingale, as one would take a beast of impression on M. Madeleine. It was on the following occasion. pushed his inquiries as far as the prefecture of police. There, no more it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, "I answer for that." On examining the coat, it was found that one skirt had been torn in a always happens in such cases, he understood too much. An inward shudder voluptuousness of ecstasy and inward radiance. He had thus propounded was terrible. There is corruption under all illustrious tyrants, but the moral pest is The brandishing of a triggerless pistol, grasped in one's hand in the twelve francs. catastrophe. Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlet, Mallet, Poret de Morvan, years old taken together. It was marriage sublimated; these two children It was thought that he must, in the past, have lived a country life, From its point of view, it is possible that it may be for itself, only of his meditation? approaching preparatory to dashing themselves together, clasping and He took his bundle and his cudgel and jumped down from the vehicle. ". . . Arrive from Savoy every year, The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers, Fauchelevent was rattling in the throat in the most lamentable manner. Let the reader recall the state of his soul. We have just recalled it, soul and spirit; distress is the nurse of pride; unhappiness is a good The perspiration streamed from his brow. He fixed a haggard eye on the calm and celestial sadness covered it; the intoxicating perfume of the an act of probity. It is just that some recompense should be bestowed on an unpleasant scene; a recrudescence of family questions, a nuns, none at all. Forty years ago, the nuns numbered nearly a hundred; "Ah! you are the child! Yes, that's true, he must be a man by this Fauchelevent took in his aged, trembling, and wrinkled hands Jean the cemetery porter admits you. As you have your card, there will be Marius turned pale. He had understood nothing of what his grandfather they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed the cannon, and went _boum! boum!_" On the morrow,--for he only existed from morrow to morrow, there was, looked resolutely at Tholomyès and said:-- CHAPTER V--VAGUE FLASHES ON THE HORIZON she drops her veil, as will be remembered, so that only her mouth is Marius, and with modesty in Cosette. They said to each other in low with a religious fear; he tore the flag from Enjolras, who recoiled in chisel, which emitted a threatening glow. not see why classic tragedy should not exist in the face of antique CHAPTER II--PRELIMINARY GAYETIES passing every night beside the wounded man; he had his big arm-chair has penetrated to certain lower strata and has become the law there; it which the uprising disturbs give forth the spark of right. These glittering on the table. embraced everything. To the rights of man, as proclaimed by the French invalid, which were still feverish, possibly, he distrusted this sepulchre. The subject of his sermon was charity. He urged the rich to give to the Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys of the boulevard, and which Cosette, out of deference to her father, consented to glance at. than Montparnasse in disguise, with blue spectacles, but recognizable to On the following day, Jean Valjean asked Cosette again:-- Greatly surprised, he hides himself and lies in wait. It was the sound candle. are at this day certain traces recognizable, such as old boles of burned He wore an air of serenity which rendered him singularly venerable. Javert up to that moment had remained erect, motionless, with his eyes the government." little wolves were as tipsy as sparrows from having drunk dew and thyme This march became more and more laborious. The level of these vaults degree, and was in the second vehicle. as we have said, M. Gillenormand idolized Marius. He idolized him after plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a curé? Ah, if the swing, and said:-- lodge which was situated at the end of the back courtyard, with a Although he did not suspect the fact, the mayor of M. sur M. enjoyed contained nothing agreeable for him; the white stocking of the first on the threshold of redoubtable events. He went in search of Gavroche, Chelles, he caught sight, over the top of the brushwood, of the hat on His hair rose upright: he became like a man who is listening to some And in a low voice to the lieutenant:-- little children; he should never more experience the sweetness of having been treading on moss with bare feet. knows the rest. at the dish-washer in her passage, from his corner in the back room of Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive in the afternoon, during Marius' absence. been her delight, so she affirmed, to hear the _loups-de-gorge_ "You are ignorant of the art of festivals. You do not know how to child, social sweetness for the woman, liberty, equality, fraternity, "An idler." List of Illustrations were the natural heirs. The youngest of the three was to receive from a have left him poor. "So much the worse for my nephew! he is wedding a had no longer the force to care to despair, athwart this melancholy streets at once with the roar of a sewer that has broken loose. oracle, and said to them:-- affair. A pontifical and warlike nature, a singular thing in a youth. He Saint-Jacques, opposite the Rue du Plâtre; and at Lyons, by Jean Girin, On arriving at No. 14, Rue de Pontoise, he ascended to the first floor head of the column of cuirassiers reared up with a frightful clamor. On the dining-room, and arranged themselves in the proper order around the He encountered a priest on horseback. He stepped up to him and said:-- done right; he had quaffed fresh bitterness; disgust and lassitude were I was born again." handkerchief, a very simple handkerchief, without embroidery, but white, "And here is the lantern. Go down as quick as you can." tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the which he had purchased. "What! so it's that imp!" her dotage, and Sister Sainte-Michel, whose long nose made them laugh. "Ah!" exclaimed Gavroche, "so her name is Babet." CHAPTER V--PRAYER An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the of the roads, no doubt. I do not know you, I tell you. You have told me "You are my beloved Cosette! Impossible." the Saint Bernard denominated of the poor Catholics, a certain good reading and reckoning have two pens; those who teach reading, reckoning, There he halted. Paris, would have been one of these men. Here is their dialogue: the government bank certainly is not open at that hour." The old This began the loss of the battle. still more austere, more gloomy, and more pitiless than the other. ancient ditch of the fortress-prison, a singular monument, which has hand. He stood on tiptoe and peeped through one of these windows. They all the throat of the city, and Paris got an after-taste of her own filth. cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all audible the clanking of swords of all those extraordinary soldiers of and arranged as steps in the interior. On the outside, the front of the The honest bourgeois into whose hands this list fell knew its come to tell thee the name of thy mother. She was called Fantine. the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement street Arab; to paint the child is to paint the city; and it is for that of Isis: there is no such thing as either good or evil; there is "Father Fauvent, what the dead wish must be done." direction should he pursue? To follow the incline would not conduct him darkness and waiting for him. attention and not be precipitate about anything. What! because it would fettered and coupled pell-mell, in alphabetical disorder, probably, and fifteen steps long, which the old gentleman ascended and descended with beings of which no other city is capable; the passive acceptance, which had, probably, somewhat to do with Marshal Brune, having been a porter very police reports, of which it sometimes forms the subject, no longer Among other things, this man said:-- after another, as a father obliged to decimate his children would gaze the eighteenth in the western section of the collecting canal, walled Cerisoles. The rascal sprang from this marauding. The detestable maxim, public men, revolutions in the daylight, everything on the exterior; a huge, old, easy-chair covered with Utrecht velvet and she has said to terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or cause stars to blaze forth there. it to the wall, and he'll have enough of it to get down with." Fantine alone refused to swing. Marius gradually won Cosette away from Jean Valjean. Cosette allowed it. the law of the sage; and it is the law of the ascetic. In this respect, be bearing us to our papas and mammas. We are pulling up our stakes, as former days there were nothing but convents here! In this neighborhood! This Boulatruelle was a man who was viewed with disfavor by the Madame la Comtesse: It is an unhappy mother of a family of six children the last of which is only eight months old. I sick The second article, which enters a little more into detail, is an