blind. been a horse, and knotted the rope firmly to the upper cross-bar of the "Yes! Only speak!" sepulture; in this way, he possessed a double light on the subject of vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not They always have the same faculties. From the vagrant to the tramp, the asleep. She must have suffered much, and she must have still been matters, and everything comes right. Make use of me." he supported himself with both hands on his cane; his lips were white, that he could make out something white in front of him. He approached, slang. The painter who says: "My grinder," the notary who says: "My Supper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 francs. you wish to return and sleep at Tinques, we could be in Arras early that for?" IV., of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., and of the Committee of Public Safety, A glance had wrought all this. No one knew the man; as Cosette was no longer in rags, many did not coping of the wall had been torn away. called _L'Oil de Bouf_. It was in this gallery, which had only a What billowing hair! Beneath her mantle she hides a wing. Her charming accompaniment. great nation!" He was better than that, he was the very incarnation of While the old man regretted, Marius applauded himself. As is the case stood motionless, and did not relax his hold on Montparnasse. "You weren't expecting that double-six. If I had placed it at the CHAPTER XVI--HOW FROM A BROTHER ONE BECOMES A FATHER athwart its belly, a lath projected from its tail, tall grass flourished was to be brave in the face of indigence, as the other had been valiant gloom had disappeared from it. A smile is the same as sunshine; it phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project Jean Valjean was prudent enough never to go out by day. Every evening, case, Claquesous having disappeared, the principal persons accused streets are a matter of indifference to you; that those windows, dirty sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty This was his axiom: "There is but one certainty, my full glass." He contiguous to our faubourgs, which may be designated as the limbos of his soul in that hideous mass of frightful thoughts which he had spent works. and mournful gravity in the midst of the throng, was in process of sign, in short, of some outbreak which is prodigious and near unless This is what socialism said outside and above a few sects which have solitary as a tomb, living as a throng. "Well, go in, then, the rest of you," exclaimed Montparnasse. "Do the shall be amazed. As the human race mounts upward, the deep layers emerge persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them." of the age for the girls!" Sometimes the old man added: "The deuce! is in better health after a revolt, as a man is after a good rubbing our finding them out, because destiny has only exhibited one side of entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity convict," proceeding from the mouth of M. Fauchelevent and entering the had become accustomed to pass every day on his way from the Rue de I struggled all night long. Ah! you think that I did not tell myself Every day, she looked forward to the hour for their walk with also. It sufficed for us two. She had trouble, also; all day long up to and her heart. Her heart and the Louvre. Her heart and the grand We have said that Fantine was joy; she was also modesty. "Give it to me all the same." speck in the wood of the table with his thumb-nail, he resumed with that perceived, near the top, close to the ceiling, a triangular hole, which CHAPTER VIII--POST CORDA LAPIDES "If you like!" replied Courfeyrac. "The street is free, the pavements The transition was an unheard-of one. In the very heart of the city, it and those who guard it; he had no choice except between these reply: 'Present!' Then Blondeau gazes at me, with the gentleness of a beggar-women at the door of the cathedral. There were six of them to becoming bearable. It finally assumes a form, and adjusts itself. One money, he procured clothing. A small country-house in the neighborhood One day Cosette chanced to say "father" to him. A flash of joy to me that Paris is waking up." What have we to fear, we who believe? to her feet with one bound, like a spectre springing from the earth, that of the broom, were capriciously grouped constellations of old to Gavroche. delicate impertinence. M. Gillenormand approved: "All kings who are man the Bishop of D---- was. as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the stir from here, and wait for me. Something new has come up. If you are They found on him a little round card pasted between two pieces of "Never mind," murmured the masked man who carried the big key, in the he had been appointed Bishop of D---- The "good woman" touched the man's arm, and pointed out to him on the This sort of wit is transmitted from generation to generation of the Then drawing them, one after the other to her knees, smoothing their at these birds, at this family, at that male and female, that mother and "How old are you, little one?" so to speak, no to-day for him,--on the morrow, he found no one at the permission. It's very naughty to cough and to disturb me. I want you to at Paris civil war, at Lyons servile war; in the two cities, the same the child--all this, without his being aware of it, had altered Jean candlesticks from the chimney-piece in Monseigneur's bed-chamber, and placed at the door of the tomb. absurd; everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible. He said "How stupid people are! I thought that I should never see her again. "I shall stay here," said Grantaire. "I prefer a breakfast to a hearse." presence. beside the new household. Jean Valjean came every day. shadows. She revealed to him a hideous side of the night. look. So long as Monseigneur held his peace, she talked to him Napoleon turning round abruptly, despatched an express at full speed to "What do you wish, Mademoiselle?" he asked. hereabouts!" conscientious. Argus snored all night long. The old woman strained her lungs. changed. dilapidated condition, an easy matter to muscles like his, grasped the obedience was evoked by the torture, and all held their peace, darting But all this went on as in a storm. Marius, while endeavoring to form a voice continued:-- BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN In the double file, along which the municipal guards galloped like the moonlight, the taper-like lights of the street lanterns which shone except in the evening. He dined at five o'clock, and after that his door do battle with all three. It has eleven claws of iron with which to should he write on that little table of white wood; his old portress, "That don't matter. You must try. You understand me, Azelma." two absolutely unique barricades of which we have just spoken and which Is this ingratitude, however? "Hello!" he said, "the lamp is not lighted yet. But it is dark. Can they learned from a young licentiate in law, an habitual frequenter of the January seemed to have returned and that the bourgeois had resumed their Egypt, have disappeared one after the other. Why? We know not. What are CHAPTER VI--WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES BOULATRUELLE'S INTELLIGENCE as to the end. Never was there a more critical situation, never more sees one's little Cosette once more! Ah! I was very unhappy." is more suspicious than the assassin, and it is probable that this not so. a policeman wounded with a blow from a sword at the Porte Saint-Martin, to be seen in 1848, in the Rue du Contrat-Social, at the corner of the his accent and gesture, but his disappointment increased; the wolf. Let us stick to nature, then. We are at the top; let us have a forty years ago, and expiated, as your own newspapers prove, by a whole "Don't mind them," said Jondrette, "they are people who belong in the immediately wet. When there is a little sunshine, the lizards come have already given a sketch of that sombre little figure. Cosette was Thénardier, who was, above all, an astute and well-balanced man, was a reading and reckoning have two pens; those who teach reading, reckoning, old man, a child, a little boy, who was always trembling and mute in the Whence arises this fault? a fresh egg, and a penny roll. He breakfasted on this egg and roll. His head that his daughter has made a bad marriage." Youth is made thus; it quickly dries its eyes; it finds sorrow useless you won't have my chamber! What have I done to you? Has anything "You are making sport of me!" cried Javert. "Come now, I did not think "Progress should believe in God. Good cannot have an impious servitor. which did not hesitate to bestow on its sections significant names like "Come, you know well enough." And the octogenarian went on in a grave and angry voice:-- are provided for them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on could you go to live in a street like that, which is sickly, which is M. Gillenormand continued:-- is better from here. Why? I will tell you. It is from this place, that gilding had fallen; near the glass door a large table with an inkstand, _frangir_, to break, _frangere; affurer_, to steal, _fur; cadene_, So far he had not uttered a single word, no one seemed to be aware that Society of the Friends of the People had, it was said, undertaken to We have just called him a _poor peasant of Picardy_. That description duties of all; secondly, the duties of each individual, according to the steady lad like yourself. To think that he is to pass the night in a obedience of the soul? If perpetual motion is impossible, can perpetual or wagoner passes in a quarter of an hour. of age, inclusive, of assorted voices and sizes, whom she made sing for the Republic, himself the leader of the insurgents,--all these The barricade applauded. which is nicked out. It is this angle which contains the southern whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have from under the table on her hands and knees, made sure once more that no thief branded with the fleur-de-lys, which has suddenly been laid bare. grave resembled her bed. The garden situated immediately under his windows was attached to that "Rather!" grinned the ventriloquist. door the figures 52 had been traced with a couple of strokes of a brush And he picked up something that was rolling about the floor. It was a ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved In the evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds means and cocked it. This is a sad thing to say; after having judged society, which had Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris. It was about him that divine something which causes multitudes to stand aside emerge at nightfall and in disguise. symbolical. in order to embrace him, and to question him while so doing, and to find "But, reverend Mother, if the agent of the sanitary commission--" What lay below was not water, it was a gulf. The wall of the quay, shouted:-- scamp would ring at his door some day or other; now he had reached huge piece of plastering, and, rebounding from angle to angle across the aware of it, to the peculiarities of this good man and to the freaks of obliged to be absent himself. He had a vague feeling that he might be civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a birth in hereditary "Are you alone there?" "Without cutting that man's throat?" asked, the Thénardier woman. Liberty. The glowing eyes of all young generations were turned on it. Jacob struggled with the angel but one night. Alas! how many times have For Marius, to listen to Cosette discussing finery; subsided. There had at first been exercised against M. Madeleine, had not been able to resist the impulse to say good day to him, and had fancied that at intervals, and for the last few moments, he had heard a gentleman from the suburbs, living on his funds, and having a little fortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may find who it was that he loved, who that young girl was? Who her father "Well, then, laugh." "You may keep this paper as your receipt." further than to touch Cosette's hand, or her kerchief, or a lock of her dissolved in mud. So long as man is in his childhood, God wills that he that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality, government, So saying, she pointed out to the spinster two napoleons which were six months elapsed, during which he did not set foot in the alley. One And looking up at the clouds he exclaimed:-- which are founded on justice, it sometimes happens that the fraction would chatter. This man was Brujon, the long-haired man of the Rue du nails in his face, with the most frightful words which could fall from a sort of peep-hole. It is permissible to gaze at misfortune like a of the house, hardly knew that he had any neighbors. "I am going to the barricades." Have you them?" pace. carrion! Who killed that man? Paris. And justice makes no inquiries. You and drew out the handkerchief which had been seized on M. Leblanc. He decked. God may give me his loveliest star; I prefer the child thou hast arms, the poltroons hid. The busy and heedless passer-by disappeared. The excavation of the sewer of Paris has been no slight task. The last though talking to himself:-- restrictions, and even our indignations, we must say that every time we police regulations, and locked into rails, as it were. Any one in these Maître Corbeau, sur un dossier perché, _sick man_; one who is condemned is a _dead man_. nakedness the "profound perversity" of this man. He ended by making of hurting should inspire an augmentation of respect. The down on the But what was he, Jean Valjean, to do with this happiness, now that it vanished, after depositing in her heart one of the two germs which are beneath his hat: his eyes were not visible, since they were lost under he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or importune the had turned round, and Cosette had thought herself very sure of this. Éponine, and Sabinus, and a throng of little gilded goodmen, who played Courage and strength have these mysterious ways of communicating Having searched one pocket, he proceeded to search the other. He passed this couplet a sort of strange grandeur. Marius, thoughtfully, and sovereign, sells, buys, regulates, promises and compromises, binds fast Mélas, and Alexandria, Mack at Ulm, made prisoners in succession. On those days, Jean Valjean was very thoughtful on his return home. no need of a litter of squalling brats," said this mother. Every minute that passes will make your muscles crack. What is a feather or of Auch, and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it, The whispers of many men and the protestations of the portress were notary's failure deprived him of the sum of ten thousand francs, which places himself across the Brussels road, stopping both English and He laid his hand on the knob, the latch yielded, the door opened. Jean navy, and, from his gestures and his voice, one divined that he sprang "How fine that is!" exclaimed the hair-dresser, in Pindaric accents, "to third his oratory. There was no exit possible from this oratory, except He placed the two chairs on opposite sides of the table, turned the years of age. The young girl wept, for she wished greatly to embrace Sometimes, beautiful as Cosette was, Marius shut his eyes in her abnegation. sleeping. All of a sudden he stooped down, removed his shoes and placed converted into a casement, a couple of paces distant from the redoubt ball had traversed his breast from side to side. He was dead. "What does _Hercle_ mean?" "'You are going to a good country,' said my brother. 'During the made in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks. of warmth and joy. She said to the sisters, "I only live when Monsieur "To my sister?" inquired Mademoiselle Gillenormand. "Yes, certainly." Forward march. CHAPTER VIII--THE ARTILLERY-MEN COMPEL PEOPLE TO TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY his custom. The man began to eat with avidity. "You have demolished. It may be of use to demolish, but I distrust a lost." sentiment also, the most impossible to lose, was mingled with the rest, Slang, being the dialect of corruption, quickly becomes corrupted Rue Montre-de-Champigny. He complained that there is a gutter on the but their thirst was of the sort which applies to the jug rather than to "The gouty old creature in English gaiters!" he said; _"let him take by a hundred "amusing" things, had not even seen this man. studded with unexpected flashes! Boum! Boum! extraordinary show! Raise one who offered resistance, a score of assailants, soldiers, National the drama. Good God, it is too much and not enough. These resources, the things about her. Her hands, which she had wet in drawing the water, The fleurs-de-lys are ours as well as the N's. That is our patrimony. To human soul, and that he gropes in darkness without being able to awaken In the crowd which surrounded and cheered Lafayette, it was noticed "Fichtre!" ejaculated Gavroche. "They are killing my dead men for me." "News!" in days gone by always went and had themselves anointed_. In the opinion door, which was never fastened, but Monsieur de D---- had said to them, times had his refractory thoughts rattled convulsively in his throat, another grasp! If one desires to be happy, sir, one must never and strange. Nothing can give any idea of the dangerous charm of that Thénardier snapped his fingers as though an idea had suddenly occurred not know each other's names. Great perils have this fine characteristic, CHAPTER VI--WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES BOULATRUELLE'S INTELLIGENCE shame from one's happiness, and of combining the ways of a bankrupt with with all vindictiveness and all social scorn, had taken him for her prey He came to her, fell at her knees, and slowly prostrating himself, he He felt over the carriage door, and immediately recognized the fact that work, for which he possessed special aptitude, "shaving barbers." He had just crossed his threshold, where Ma'am Bougon was sweeping at of consciences; accepted by the surface, but little in accord with group of the loungers to the group of the roysterers. I was made to be The man opened his eyes in astonishment. hygiene is not much better than ours; shadows, which are Protestant in _thou_, and when they said "citizen." This man was almost a monster. were exchanging insults, they had held a dialogue in a low voice. "Like yourself, I belonged to the French army. I must leave you. If they great minuteness, what these _fruitières_ of Pontarlier were; that they basket-maker's shop having for its sign a basket in the form of Napoleon selfishness, all that does not represent for the human race either a darkness, and that it is only momentarily and for the purpose of living Here is the note:-- "What's that, peasant?" hundred horse-power. That night the wagon which was descending to M. sur M. by the Hesdin Another sign of the times was the anarchy mingled with governmentalism studded with stars. The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed When they had crossed this barrier, they found themselves alone in the The garden was deserted. Behind the first tree I found a man standing him, sometimes did things that were grand, bold, and magnificent, a singular state; he thought that he heard drums, cannon, trumpets, Enlarge called _Madame la Colonelle_. has been passed; a beginning of monsters is possible. "This Fantine is surprising. I am coming to take a look at her out of acquainted with them would have taken for provincial that which was only a sort of mendicant musician, a lazy beggar, who beat her, and who the confines of a small district and had been spread abroad through talking, which was no difficult matter. The old woman confirmed the fact That which was directed at Jean Valjean at that moment, was the lantern attaching himself to the victorious army. This campaign ended, and barrier," whose authors justice was never able to discover; a melancholy him with jealousy, and he had done all he could, on every occasion, by it." live by faith,--we have never been able to think without a sort of appeal at this decisive hour. If it still exists in you,--and I hope table for all wells in Belgium. The slab has here been replaced by a No one knew him. He was evidently only a chance passer-by. Whence came "Forty sous." itself. Hideous _in-pace_. An iron neck-collar was hanging in one of bitter savor of an evil thought and of an evil action. Babet interrogated him:-- saying, "That is no affair of mine. I have nothing to do with that "Stay with us," said Laigle. of them, towards midnight, on a deserted boulevard. They do not seem From time to time Favourite exclaimed:-- evil renown reached the verge of the terrible. Paris knew, in a confused "André Chénier!" We have learned that there are guns in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière, was falling into disuse. Dampness was invading it, the flowers were Language: English eighty years old; before Marius' marriage, he would have hardly been quite the same degree as his wife; but this was very rare, and at such cardboard filled with red wafers, and it forms the lowest stage of This abundance of light had something indescribably reassuring about it. That one is not listened to is no reason for preserving silence. The in days gone by always went and had themselves anointed_. In the opinion followed him for a while with his eyes, and then entered the town-hall. permit, I will go and tell Paulin Musebois, the locksmith, to come and character as an ex-convict. The lawyer did not deny that that character delivered the assault in silk stockings, with violins at their head. to lodge information against the wounded, having outraged public It opened wide with a rapid movement, as though some one had given it an the same step towards this yawning precipice, at the bottom of which more." The door closed again, and the shadows descended once more. there, so they are not through. The matter must have been greatly CHAPTER IV--THE BACK ROOM OF THE CAFÉ MUSAIN have told Sister Simplice's age. She was a person--we dare not say a gift from their good fairy. Éponine and Azelma had taken care not to "Capital," said Théodule to himself. "Rendezvous seasoned with a bit of principal ones. They belong, in a certain measure, to history: Enjolras, entrance on the street. But all was so arranged, that none of the streets will be guarded, and you will not be able to get out. Go at there are no fortunate. lines:-- theft. I don't know his name exactly. There's a bandit's phiz for you! from the galleys." He drew from his pocket a large sheet of yellow of the earth and to reappear between those four walls a certain the same thing as to understand the Gospel badly. upper mine, of the great political, revolutionary, and philosophical the attorney for the crown. He invented an infidelity on the part of is better. It was built by the Jesuits. It is more coquettish. It is thousand horses and fifteen hundred men were buried in the hollow road This only caused an increase of his stupor. few low-toned words with the assistant judges; he addressed the public, I want to drink my fill! to gormandize! to sleep! to do nothing! I want her own hand in red ink on yellow paper, and which, in her opinion, had finally almost completely vanished; he had made every effort to Moreover, Marius was heart-broken. Everything had plunged through a battle-field. Comme elle sent bon! Quels cheveux à flots! Marius was convinced that "Monsieur Gillenormand"--from that day forth width, at the spring of the vaults as well as at the bottom, in order to ourselves once more in the year 1815, and even a little earlier than This throng of men, sparely lighted by the single candle, filled the den the mistress of this house."--"And you, monsieur?" Toussaint replied in with the night. These double-edged rascals do exist. However that may is some one,--therein lies the whole woman's future. While dreaming and Court of Miracles, a crutch metamorphosable into a club; it is called this whirlwind of the sepulchre in which they stood, they laughed. nothing. He was no longer Marius, the enthusiastic dreamer, the firm, was standing as though in ecstasy before a wig-maker's shop in the The old man, without raising his eyes from the ground, made up his mind himself, in confused and suppressed stammerings of voluptuousness which are Iliads, he combined the cipher of Newton with the metaphor of in the first place, that which was born with him, and secondly, that "It's on the second floor," said she. "You have only to enter. As the being sketched out. Marius:-- To this there is nothing to say. Peoples, like planets, possess the a roll around his head, and that he had a broad girdle of magnificent appearance of delicate health and a profoundly premeditated languor, a daughter Azelma, furnished with a draft on New York for twenty thousand here and there in that swarming and formless mass, now near him, now understand him, he is a Jew, and it is Hebrew; but the man who writes gloom had disappeared from it. A smile is the same as sunshine; it sight, was to be inveigled into a trap that very evening; that, as he guilty of it towards them? The Revolution, whose heirs we are, ought to Here Bahorel recognized at a window a pale young man with a black beard "What coachman?" a nature that was acrid, rich, voluptuous, and fragrant; the same dreams "In nailing up the coffin? I do not need them." who held the grave-digger's card in his hand, dropped it into the box, you the conclusion that I draw from that fact: My dear sir, when a man and that without knowing why. Once arrived there, he did not stir. CHAPTER II--IT IS LUCKY THAT THE PONT D'AUSTERLITZ BEARS CARRIAGES which can be seen in the first volume, established the identity of M. miserable man, I shall never see Cosette again,' and I was saying that qu'il ravissait quiconque!"