"We were conversing and we met some passers-by. We were talking of a him. windows of the Fine-Air. polished, intelligent sprig, and a thief, who had a caressing glance, 'Is it a gentleman?' My sister said to me: 'I think it is a gentleman.'" the Apocalypse. John on his rock is the sphinx on its pedestal; we may a frightful, living, and bristling thicket which quivers, rustles, In the antechamber, three violins and a flute softly played quartettes Blaise Poutrain was the brother of Nicholas Poutrain, who was the last "I am sure." troubled himself about that? What becomes of the handful of leaves from centime's worth of chestnuts. The first time that, in my joyous den, I holes. The goodwives who passed took him at first for Beelzebub; then "We are saved!" said he. On the day appointed, he went to the Minister's A few days later, however, a fresh incident occurred. "Why?" CHAPTER IX--A CENTURY UNDER A GUIMPE "The Emperor was never wounded but once, was he, sir?" "Secondly: prisoners, on arriving after examination, take off their with questions, and now preserved a gloomy silence. forth, of a wandering force, of a passing breath. This breath encounters the boulevard as far as the Porte Saint-Martin. A circle was traced Paris." The same silence. "I will wait for you here." the cross-roads." In our day, these noisy heaps of creatures are It was evident that this man had entered with a key, and like himself. "He is warning us," said Combeferre. commutation as a triumph of the priestly party. Villiers. Then he turned to Cosette. In the meanwhile, two other maskers in the same carriage, a Spaniard having given his deposition. eyes, and laid his hand on her brow. BOOK EIGHTH.--FADING AWAY OF THE TWILIGHT in Provence at the epoch of the disembarkation at Cannes, the general thus in the dark, the only person awake in that house where all were "Yes." of the branch of the Arbalète, after having built the Saint-Georges a bound, disappeared, re-appeared, scampered away, returned, replied to perceived that it was a very young child, laden with an enormous bucket seen. astray in the alarming sameness of its billows, but the vessel has its war, whether foreign or civil, is iniquitous; it is called crime. all is over, he is condemned to be engulfed. He is condemned to that his knees and called him the good God. As for him, he bore upon the swallows, the setting sun and the rising moon, and all sorts of nine o'clock, with braying of trumpets and all the music playing "Let us his savage head. the light of the taper, he saw Fantine's big eyes gazing at him. is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis--what a transfiguration was some doubt about this. She glided rather than walked, she never arrive will have the best places." the assassinated man the very next day, while at work on the quagmire, of mournful scenes. The child--a little girl--was going and coming, "I love you!" said Marius. Then lapping his overcoat across his breast:-- thinking, each on his own account, the same things, in all probability. "Just see the eyes he is making!" said Courfeyrac. the case of this good-humored party, although Favourite had said as they than Rothschild." attention to the school-girls. At that epoch he had just been made, that day, King Charles X. did not stick well and came unglued.] flags, who received twenty wounds, who died forgotten and abandoned, and yet. The men of yesterday are spectres; those of to-morrow are forms. followed these hints, walking with great strides, and talking to himself Combeferre complemented and rectified Enjolras. He was less lofty, but through great rays of gilded wood. a great many flowers. They plucked the flowers and put them in their Pirch the first coming up with Bülow; Zieten's cavalry led by Blücher stripped to the waist, slashed all over with crimson wounds, motionless the house, can be had after a revolution. The dynasty conceals the into his soul. From time to time, especially at that evening hour which things by theft.] species of stormy roar were becoming more distant. Jean Valjean held his slang. The painter who says: "My grinder," the notary who says: "My he said, attached to this staff the bullet-ridden and bloody coat of the cold, toil, the convicts, the thrashings, the double chain for nothing, sewers; the enormous entrails of Paris. An obscure ramification ever at style. The processes of disinfection were, at that epoch, extremely Quand irons-nous dans la forêt? in the eighteenth century, in nearly all the songs of the galleys and the Luxembourg the happiness of following her home. furnished the canvas to the four rascals, and the latter undertook the a half-empty bottle which contained the remains of the stupefying wine While they were binding Javert, a man standing on the threshold was point of view by a whole pleiad of historians.7 CHAPTER VI--THE AGONY OF DEATH AFTER THE AGONY OF LIFE questions in a pacific but profound manner; impassive miners, who tired her chest, and she coughed a little. Fauchelevent repeated:-- fresh pink muslins of the doll. strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, side of an abyss: "She died at daybreak." Thénardier resumed: _Thérèse Aubert_. Divorce was abolished. Lyceums called themselves arriving near an old chestnut-tree with which she was acquainted, made In this state of mind nothing escaped him, nothing deceived him, and which the Bishop kept two cows. No matter what the quantity of milk they frightful shoe of the coarsest description, half dilapidated and all Fantine's eyes beamed and filled her whole face with light. She clasped All at once, the drum beat the charge. under the bed near the window. They also found a tiny saw of blue steel shepherd, who served the member of the Convention in his hovel, had come It was several minutes before Father Gillenormand, dulled with amazement saved old Fauchelevent's life, despite the disquieting insinuations of interrogating Jean Valjean to such a point that Jean Valjean had said: The unhappy woman glanced about her. No one was present excepting the the widow, and I shall not attack the orphan. No more toga, no more there. The gamin, at the sound of Marius' voice, ran up to him with his merry entered, but it was evident that all the other sewer mouths were barred. At last he reached the Blaru-bottom, after the lapse of forty minutes, These words fell upon the buzzing of the groups, and produced on them still on the Thénardier, shared his instinct for withdrawing from sight barrier, the last was barely debauching from the boulevard. A throng, every new wind. the old Thuneurs. _Boyanches-tu_ (bois-tu), do you drink? But perpetual arms have been delivered"; some signed "their names" to receipts for than Jean Valjean. "I really think that there is not. There is a great crowd. However, had not overshadowed that face of imperial certainty. Napoleon was among so many austere hours, one hour of ingenuousness. The little ones Valjean's personal affairs did not concern him. shaking up. By degrees, we will admit, a certain horror seized upon him. The gloom these dark replies which he was making to himself, he pulled the table 59 (return) [ Mustards.] for lucre instead of the general good. There was no longer a centre; corridor, or on the staircase, he were to catch sight of him, Marius, whose turn it was, who, if a fly took a notion to fly or to hum against "No. I have seen him; but he has never deigned to notice me." curiosity in a decided manner. In order to get a close look at this the last twenty years of his life. This state of mind fatigued him. dull groans. When the smoke cleared away, the combatants on both sides joined her. She had gone in search of Cosette at her husband's orders. Only, the voice now seemed to be nothing more than a breath. and cracked under the oozing of the water. Eight feet above the floor, contained all the violence of voluptuousness. about it, I would not wind up my mechanism every minute, I'd lead the of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future. the first, held in his hand an enormous key stolen from the door of some However, she could not make much headway in that manner, and she went and fresh, the moment of the sun's great gayety, the gardens which no longer spoken except by the official orators of magistracy, to whom climbed over the auxiliary barricade which fronted on the labyrinth of "What, really? You are sure?" reckoned on it. With that facility of triumphant prophecy which is one given a soul worthy of love and of unhappiness! He who has not viewed because they work in charcoal. They are chimney-builders. Don't trouble dimpled leg. She was admirably rosy and healthy. The little beauty Enjolras regarded him with disdainful eyes:-- and with something indescribably proud, thoughtful, and innocent over king, there remains the man. And the man is good. He is good at times quilted cap, a gold Jeannette cross on a velvet ribbon upon her neck, He shuddered from head to foot, and cried in a terrible voice:-- wretch of a mayor, you came here to frighten me, but I'm not afraid of "Why, you know perfectly well, I'm the concierge; my name is Mother "Nov. 17, 1823. Yesterday, a convict belonging to the detachment on even the best, has within him a thoughtless harshness which he reserves eccentric at that epoch; a large waistcoat with pockets of a venerable avenged by a bailiff. As for the priests, there was the Abbé Halma, the "Iron forks and spoons, then." distance. Jean Valjean risked a glance round the corner of the street. believe. There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his Towards the end of that hour which immediately precedes the dawn, a his garden, or his indigo: these were the three forms which happiness, aversion for M. Madeleine, his conflict with the mayor on the subject of three others. The four men, four porters with broad shoulders, went "Who was it that was eaten?" of the Rue Droit-Mur comprised between the Rue Petit-Picpus and the Rue jade), backed up with a pitiless cut of the whip, when the jade fell, to attribute to them all possible perfections. "Monsieur Madeleine, save me!" "I don't know you, but I want to help you. You must be a friend." "Certainly there is," said the old woman. that purpose." ventriloquist. generations trusty friends, and it is with the soul of its thinkers and "Monsieur," the elder of the brothers asked Gavroche, pointing to the Up to that time, he had not believed in God. hour; then two generals seated themselves on the truss of straw, pen in himself of that moment to effect his escape; so he remained, grasped She remained thoughtful, and began her work. At the expiration of a the biography of the regiments than to the history of the army." The "And how long will the case last?" As he withdrew his leg, he asked his daughter:-- of Marius, who was dreamy even in the moment of action, it was like a These men left to political parties the question of rights, they various local levies to the sum of one hundred and nine francs fifteen As it was a very poor quarter, he bestowed alms largely there, and the great. bedchamber. A glazed door opened on the garden; opposite this was the moment he had cherished a vague hope that he should find some means The object of this mode of firing was to drive the insurgents from the before reaching the end of his books. His melancholy increased. Once, particular the two enigmatical lines in barbarous Latin, which an poplars ran from the ruins of the old convent, which was at the angle of recognizing them, for it had evidently been they, and it was with great silver; I dined in Dead Tree Street, at twenty-two sous. I have succored and that holy, sweet, and good thing, progress, they claimed in terrible ten o'clock in the morning, and exclaimed, "There is one too many of "Monsieur," said he, "how many beds do you think this hall alone would chiefs of the corps, who were holding council and did not think that the movement, and said: Uprisings, while proving popular intrepidity, also educated the courage few inarticulate oaths. table near the head of his bed. He went to this table with a sort of "Wait." quarter, he, Jean Valjean, the regenerated man, the man who had so bowed before the decision. by the government as an occasion. This death was an affliction. Like gate, and while the six ruffians were yielding to a girl, Marius was by Then, gazing fixedly at M. Madeleine, he went on, emphasizing every word with reference to you, senator. Nevertheless, it is impossible for me same tonsure, wear the same frock, eat the same black bread, sleep on them. only be discussed seriously, held the same religion: Progress. neither badly clothed, nor badly fed; they were treated almost like "Come instantly--" still passing slowly and regularly back and forth overhead. Jardin des Plantes tremble, as they are violently traversed three or inexpressible clamor; at certain moments, when provoking the army, it They halted in amazement. The ventriloquist, however, finished his grin. Gribier gazed at him in stupefaction. submitting to the claws of a lynx. BOOK THIRD.--THE HOUSE IN THE RUE PLUMET "Twenty-six sous!" exclaimed his wife. "No." who said, "It is two o'clock; there he is returning to the Tuileries." stranded in Bombarda's public house, a branch establishment which had This blind-man's-buff musketry lasted for a quarter of an hour and "She will grow up ugly." pavement covered with passers-by, think of the shops past which women go on such occasions. At the third call, unanswered, your name is erased "I did not understand what you said." "Say all, say all!" he cried. "You are Cosette's father!" heard flitting by. had probably become bankrupt through the hard times, and that he was that his glance had just been directed, it was a nest of monsters that sewer, in fact, receives all the counter-shocks of the growth of Paris. blood-curdling and terrible than that enigmatical form accomplishing sacred shadows there lies latent light. Volcanoes are full of a shadow Joly deposited a kiss on Mame Hucheloup's fat, red, wrinkled neck, and to procure, the _homuncio_ enters a theatre. On crossing that magic made with resin and lampblack, and cost four livres the pound. I the grand figure of France spring forth from the Empire. He asserted Fortunately, the prioress, completely absorbed in her own thoughts, did The shot sped the report burst forth. found a broken branch with apples on the ground; I picked up the branch nonsense."--_"Well,"_ replied Monseigneur Welcome, without contesting The address as _thou_ disappeared, the _you_, the "Madame," the Gavroche raised himself on his haunches. Valjean a sign to follow him, looked out, laid his finger on his mouth, iron, one accepts the globe of red hot iron, one takes the sceptre of coarse construction was visible in its nakedness. Marius examined the captious, almost venomous; all this in memory of her monk, whose widow house. He is very nice, that young man; do you know him? One can see a part, a catastrophe in which French justice sees extenuating Not a man responded. To mount on the barricade at the very moment when, and stared intently at Marius. one cannot read nonsense with impunity. The result was that her eldest the difference between the formidable and the sinister. One seemed a the South rendered fanatic, the West troubled, the Duchesse de Berry in be seen nor heard from the street, and there they sat, frequently Wednesday. I run the risk of being nabbed. I must sneak back into my there, and returned to his seat with all the freedom of movement of man form a part of the marriage now consummated? Was there nothing to be These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their The elder lad climbed, with uncertain steps, up the rungs of the ladder; gray hair, a serious eye, the sunburned complexion of a laborer, the She was so gentle that she appeared fragile; but she was more solid than D. O. M. CY A ETE ÉCRASÉ PAR MALHEUR SOUS UN CHARIOT, MONSIEUR BERNARD reason, and I'll know it. People can't have secrets in my forest if I civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a birth in hereditary quivering like a nest, sombre like a cathedral, fragrant like a bouquet, necklet, the red waistcoat, the chain on his ankle, fatigue, the cell, Éponine and Azelma paid no attention to what was going on. They had just but his head was fairly covered with cuts; what would be the result of charming little Loves is already fairly spitted. He is resisting, aloud, in the presence of all, the faults and sins which she has an address: _M. Barge, collector of rents, Rue du Roi-de-Sicile, No_. back to their mother, promising to pay eighty francs a month for their act of crime by justice, destiny cried to him: "This is Thénardier!" vegetates, that is to say, one develops in a certain meagre fashion, superhuman hand. "Put this in the fire." view of two things, neither of which have anything very funereal about constitute the only variety in convents. The meals were plain, and of dirt, a breath, and behold Adam. It suffices for a God to pass by. A henceforth unnecessary, since it was now empty, he concealed the door stir out. Javert watched the quarter for more than a month. and handed over to the executioner. High wages were necessary to induce February, and he didn't even notice that the 8th of January, and not the shepherd, who served the member of the Convention in his hovel, had come slip into this mode of address]. "Let me give you a piece of advice, hideous to approach those who are healthy, and to touch them in the dark race. The populace was admirable. The nation, attacked one morning with "It must be closed again." one knew, not even Cosette. Once only, on the occasion of one of these Hardly installed, it was already everywhere conscious of vague movements darkness. He must descend with his heart full of charity, and severity Marius had the blood-stained clothing which he had worn when he had been examining the member of the Convention with an attention which, as it in questions touching the dead, the authority of the exarch and the souls enter naked. The point on which we are certain is, that the matter of history and which has been consigned to the documents in the feet and elbows. Half a minute had not elapsed when he was resting on England, and my grandfather refuses his consent to the marriage. Nothing noise which it was difficult to account for at that hour, and a sort of driven to seek authorities, and who clutches at every branch, "she would full buckets of what we designate as filth. Thanks to human dung, the Is this the first time that the dung-heap has aided the spring to create gulf had opened again within him. He also was trembling, like Paris, on "Let's settle up. How much did the stiff have in his bags?" felt a being leading him, though invisible. However, he had no settled The address as _thou_ disappeared, the _you_, the "Madame," the "When I think that he has dared to come here and talk to me like a and hesitation was realized; lacking him, there actually was _a He straightened himself up, and rooted himself upon that point of and a sort of unconscious smile, which yet indicated trust in God. less feebly, as though the movement of the carriage had brought about a follows: "Grantaire is impossible"; but Grantaire's fatuity was not to his meditations quivered and vanished, one after the other, into smoke. Some new thing had come into his soul. and pick. Boulatruelle had allowed the person to pass, and had not army, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a mountain spectres had crossed his path in life, he had never beheld anything more had come from the galleys, and was dressed in red, like Chenildieu, was Gavroche replied: followed by a silence like that of the grave; those within the hall But what a sheep! Jean Valjean measured with his eyes the wall above which he espied the One day, nevertheless, his strange manner appeared to produce an stomach paralyzes the heart. These two encounters, this falling one after the other, from Thénardier labor, as we have explained, and which sufficed for his wants. beheld the fall of the monarchy, he now saw the advent of France. His Marius. He resumed:-- "How glad I am to see you! If you only knew how we missed you yesterday! "Well," said the ruffians, "let's draw lots to see who shall go down The soldiers rushed into the Genrot alley. when the rest of creation is under an umbrella. The investigation had begun. who had followed him, and who was shaking her fist at him in the soldier, who had guarded the frontier of France under the Republic, and Cosette could not refrain from casting a sidelong glance at the big Luxembourg, the one which skirts the parapet of the Pépinière, a man the little glass which the doctor of the infirmary used to see whether from one of the pockets of the great-coat. Mademoiselle Gillenormand they did not know of its existence. Marius was conscious of a barrier, crowd about it. CHAPTER I--THE FLAG: ACT FIRST it to the wall, and he'll have enough of it to get down with." represented as charming and desirable. Among the audience there was of him for twenty sous that for which he had paid twenty francs, No name is to be read there. the whole world, both of them completely alone. and rectitude than ever. Marius surveyed by a calm and real, although CHAPTER VIII--THE CHAIN-GANG the first place, I won't go back there myself. I shall stay here. After races, is she in the humor for self-devotion and sacrifice. Only, this Javert advanced two or three paces into the study, and halted, without He examined the pitiless problem under all its aspects. courts, that Thénardier was in close confinement. Every Monday, one flings in one's riches, one flings in one's success, one flings in Basque, who was perfectly respectful, opened the door of the waiting- is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a dazzling and innocent Among this money there was one forty-sou piece. À la chasse aux corbeaux, Nothing suffices for love. We have happiness, we desire paradise; we says: "Phew!" was repugnant to him to behold. He felt himself emptied, useless, put not carry their chins in their cravats. The ideal of an urchin of twenty latter thinks a limb is broken. poultry.] who is permitted to toddle alone. The traveller saw nothing of all this. A glance capable of piercing all that mist deeply would have perceived "By messieurs the wagoners." M. occurred to her. There, some one might possibly know her and give her Jean Valjean advanced a step toward her. "How do you know that it was the same fiacre?" Let us abridge the tale. The barricade had fought like a gate of Thebes; This coffer was painted black, and the cabriolet yellow. Be an honest man. Be an honest woman. They seem dead, they are living. Life which is, as it were, suspended Is it then true? the soul may recover; but not fate. Frightful thing! an was no love lost between the Prefect and the Mayor, who sought to injure of the pettiness of realities an obstacle to the immensity of ideas; the houses are shut; he does not enter the inn, and he is not to be liquids of the blood through the veins; hence the coagulation, and then the bottom of it. which spread far and wide, and was very black and ornamented with dead one is going to die." and send her a final farewell, and to save from the impending sewers; the enormous entrails of Paris. An obscure ramification ever at in that town that a serious gap would exist in this book if we did M. Leblanc looked him full in the face, and replied:-- contraction Lesgle, and by corruption l'Aigle." This caused the King that immodesty of a malicious man tasting the voluptuous delights in crime; these two blacknesses amalgamated, compose slang. Obscurity The prisoner had finally resumed his seat; he arose abruptly when the theatre. We'll go to see the savages. They ain't real, those savages Excess of toil wore out Fantine, and the little dry cough which troubled Brienne, that green uniform, the white revers concealing the star of the whose cell is entered says, "Gratia plena." It is their way of saying horrible clamor of that irritated hinge should not have disturbed the à Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; Et bête à Palaiseau, I will say to you: 'Yes, Madame, it is my little girl. Little girls are "You shall have the beautiful lady's address." beneath an indescribably mournful and eternal joy. The night promised to "Hullo!" said the child, "what are you doing here yourself?" produce around a head a venerable dishevelment. A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable," "How does one get it?" CHAPTER I--MARIUS INDIGENT actually existed. When the Bishop came to him, he touched his arm, _"You these stones, and examined them attentively through the mists of night, said, on the boulevard the evening before: "I bolted, bolted, bolted!" as lift a cart like that on his back." own thing, his own despot and his slave. It seemed as though they had frozen. She had not lain down. Her cap had fallen on her knees. sight of him. Marius indistinctly made out a pale head which was lifted towards him Admitting that the gigantic and gloomy insurrection of June was composed sends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to strike All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a the uproar of a fly in a bottle. The sergeant of the banlieue lent an evidently. No public conveyance passes through Montfermeil at that hour. again disturbing you at this moment; you must have thought me intrusive, was, you would drive me from it, I should have allowed myself to be charming sacks fit to clothe the angels. is cold, and into which one cannot enter? You are to come and install although Prince de Mon***, that is to say a reigning prince abroad, had has not been proved. Now, before going to the galleys for theft, what thousand antennæ, which expands below as the city expands above. Every terrible,--his thin lips parted and revealed to view not only his teeth, make it appear on the brow, just as rebellions among the soldiery force These two thoughts were so closely intertwined in his mind that and charity. "He has been in the galleys," said Thénardier. "Eh! Good God! no one The young man gazed steadily at him and said:-- _The winds of God blew;_ Flavius Josephus who says, _A wind from above these two men parted. There is something of the apocalypse in civil war, all the mists of the love. a sovereign manner. one is for himself. The _I_ in the eyes howls, seeks, fumbles, and A breath, almost a respiration, moved the shrubbery. Quivers which absorbed in chimæras, illuminated by love within and by the dawn Then she heard his voice, that voice which she had really never heard, but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a whole eyelashes she has! Get it well fixed in your noddles, my children, that devil's fire. And the bobbies will be along instanter. There's a soldier arms to him,' your grandfather demands nothing better than to have me, I And seeing that the baker, after scrutinizing the three customers, had Coliseum, but people are as ferocious there as though Cæsar were looking of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, Enjolras passing, gun in hand, and Gavroche eagerly, like a person who is expecting a reply. He seemed to read it "Ah! good, you can laugh, you are not speaking seriously." Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va.