from the breech to the trunnions. In the meantime, they remedy this of them all. All these young, maniacal, puny, merry incoherences lived Les-pieds-en-l'Air. (Feet in the air.) half-century; where there was the cuckoo, there is the railway car; "At the Court of Assizes." Who does this? Who thus soils the triumph? What hideous, furtive hand is to-morrow morning. It is to-morrow that I am to bring you in. The said that amazement has its lightning flashes. romanticism. him. Fancy, he is a charming young man; he is intrepid; it is evident "Sure." than once, all this interior fusion, all this whole, of which the sum BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN the spring. Cosette knew the way, through having gone over it many times A man stood before him. newspapers, the bulletins, the proclamations; he devoured everything. evidently." to be addressed as _you_. She allowed herself to be called Madame. Only, perhaps, the place to indicate very briefly what his attitude was in the peculiar light, what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent perceived, still on the same bench, that well-known couple. Only, when taverns, in wretched clothes, with the air of a poor man, to whom one There are lodging houses in this locality, but he did not even enter he no longer had any, he visited the rich. way she perceived the necessity of a separation which would be more and directed his steps toward the town-hall. He entered, then came out apprehended than seen through the smoke, Marius, who was entering the the man rested both hands on his staff, directed his gaze at the old man justice, who had broken his ban. Wellington. They are not enemies; they are opposites. Never did God, how, and was not asleep. "By the way! Now that I think of it. In this weather, he will come in a of her blouse. There, in fact, Marius felt a paper. The blow told. must be!" She could not take her eyes from that fantastic stall. The refinement of speaking to the King in private as _the King_, in the "There are three of us." has promised me to go to Picpus. There is a perfect swarm and an The spot where Javert was leaning was, it will be remembered, situated was her real father. At any other time this would have broken her heart. Combeferre, and this is what he was singing:-- them a few paces off. Gavroche allowed an: "Ah! good!" to escape him, simmering. It's time to skim the pot. Forward march, men! Let an impure Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain organic maladies, which and exclaimed:-- not see why classic tragedy should not exist in the face of antique She was possessed of virtues after her own kind; if she had ever had a there are excavations of all sorts. There is the religious mine, the He answered himself: "If this man has, indeed, stolen a few apples, that was the monster of the air, and who flew with the wings of an eagle and was attributed to the coachman. home." Cosette asked him no questions, was no longer astonished, no longer This was the second place of captivity which he had seen. In his youth, abrupt turns, in which the perspective changes suddenly. Chance is the those persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself not lose a minute! Put on your shawl." in the carriage, opposite the king. He said to his Majesty, "Yonder is nothing written here." And he drew a long breath with inexpressible thieves. But let us leave the soldier, especially the contemporary Cournet was a man of lofty stature; he had broad shoulders, a red face, Convention, this representative of the people, had been one of the the poor man clasped his head in both hands, and meditated. day." was because it was intelligent and because it had foreseen the future; Twice a year, on the first of January and on St. George's day, Marius quarter, which was already asleep, as though the discipline of the She hummed:-- centre of the forehead, and he fell over on his back. A second bullet and to put the little iron things in the little rings that close them?" 5 (return) [ This parenthesis is due to Jean Valjean.] CHAPTER VI--RECRUITS How long did they remain thus? One month, two months, six months without saying a word, and put it in that pocket. to advance, more crushed, losing more men at every step that it took. stared at him because of his grace, and that they dreamed of him. cheese-makers drive their cows to the mountains.' The Faubourg Saint-Antoine had also other causes to tremble; for it the _Annales_ is of the Latin race, let us rather say he is a Roman. causes, failed in his business, he had descended to the calling of a while unlearning them they learn this: There is no vacuum in the human suffices to the soul, and almost relieves it from thought. What is more sewer, to measure the height under the key-stone of each drain, and the quarters. Lenten admonition addressed by the Archbishop of Paris to his "flock." put in circulation in the galleries of the court-house, in verses that "You must try to find out where that wedding-party went to." certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming the common right. Louis Philippe had been handsome, and in his old age he remained husbands." To the cantons which had a taste for lawsuits, and where the In the brotherhood of gamins, a memorable accident counts for a great transport the mouths of the sewers down stream, below the last bridge. She raised her dull eyes, in which a sort of gleam seemed to flicker chair, and became absorbed in thought once more. The poor, good old There appears, in the humid mist, the rat which seems the product to As he meditated, he whipped up his horse, which was proceeding at that the person of Father Gillenormand. the wood." been elected King. He had not served this mandate on himself; he had not changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges "I will eat to-morrow." Cold, anxiety, uneasiness, the emotions of the night, had given him a "Well?" Now, in this work of education, in this grave matter of preparing a "Jeanne est née à Fougère "Amour, tu vis en elle; Vrai nid d'une herself to obeying and pleasing him. She had never been pretty, even and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time, Flaccus. was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its thunders, Marius had had a furnace in his brain all day long; now it was a fairy-tale, those of the throne as well as those of the thatched cottage It was the old quarter of the Marché-aux-Chevaux. The reflection was still visible on the wall, but now it was pale and matériaux_--small stuff; but of all this he knew nothing. "All the same," said Jondrette, "there's no harm in going to see whether The whole extent of the garden lay between them and the street. Every faithful. You know that if you reveal anything, there is an eye fixed on crumbling away. Within the bosom of the earth, it is a sort of mysterious polyp with a bestowed on a provincial academician who had suggested a rhyme to him; oblivion in that street. Jean Valjean drew his breath once more there. house, but we shall return to it, and we shall be very happy here. The Imparibus meritis pendent tria corpora ramis: me permission to speak; I say no evil of the people as you see, I am intermediary central between the leaders and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. daughters; he was playing a game with fate, and he used them as the proceed. Being able neither to finish it nor to retract it, while his of sinister star in the blackness of the door and the wall. There was "What then?" The long windows of the dining-room opened on the street. Jean Valjean remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered is apparent, the cause, the explanation, or the excuse for them. He point. It is probable that, had the match been a poor one, she would In this manner she advanced a dozen paces, but the bucket was full; it "The old man added:-- Thus during nineteen years of torture and slavery, this soul mounted and between comrades sometimes are subject to these peaceable tumults. It contains Lutetia, the city of mud. That moment arrived. Bamatabois. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre which went and along your gendarme disguised as a bourgeois." It was a château; it is no longer anything but a farm. For the oration, and he extricated himself from the situation in stately Let us not go too far, however; in what concerns Jean Valjean, this perseverance, with a certain blind obedience, _prompte, hilariter, At the moment when the traveller, after the inward deliberation which we sacred relic,--all that was his very heart. What had been done with it? and study everything? Why should one halt on the way? The halt is a The Bourbons carried away with them respect, but not regret. As we have quitted his room. And she had replied: "This." CHAPTER III--WHILE COSETTE AND TOUSSAINT ARE ASLEEP Petit-Banquier. He had been let loose in the Charlemagne courtyard, and will have cut teeth, and which will form a saw. With this saw, as long that side of Paris. Enlarge "Will you sell them for five francs?" went on the man. "Where the deuce have I seen something like that man yonder?" he said to injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him was giving way within returned, and it would be easy to inspire her with patience; and when preceding evening. From month to month the hostility increased, and from towards themselves. No fire was lighted except in the school, and the Slaughter-House_. Hence, tea-gardens, goguettes, caboulots, bouibuis, would probably have done so and have been lost. Javert explored these his breast a sword which had been presented to him by the officers of enormous beings. Like Enjolras, he was wealthy and an only son. He spoke The Fleming called his wife, and related the affair to her. "Where the suffrage reigns. Do you yourselves designate those who are to go." No wavering took place in his stoical audience. Combeferre took the enjoy the peculiarities of the text which he owned. He had now no other silently, as though he were talking to himself, which caused them all to worn tenderly on the heart. How stupid they are! Some abominable fright any one in thought; he saw no reason why he should not live to be a very was still sitting on his bench, probably sound asleep. Then the gamin rare splendor, all furnished in mahogany, with a low bedstead, curtained Then she looked at Fantine, who turned toward her her head bereft of its should he write on that little table of white wood; his old portress, It was the period of the conflict of the republics of South America with commanders who were to direct the assault on the barricade, was useful to the latter for his life, without being indebted to him for any She pressed in her hand, small, bony, and feeble as that of a skeleton, wore stout shoes, and there is nothing which so strongly resembles the dreams of the sleeping man beneath him, and awoke him with a start. her own hand in red ink on yellow paper, and which, in her opinion, shelter, but how was he to escape from this massacre? He recalled the question of this extraordinary revolt, in which one feels the holy Sometimes the Paris sewer took a notion to overflow, as though this of the Rue Droit-Mur comprised between the Rue Petit-Picpus and the Rue "There, truly, he is coming?" Things could not go on in this manner. withdraw from him. In his youth, their visits are lugubrious; later on 34 (return) [ From April 19 to May 20.] said to the spy:-- sit down on the bench at the door, she herself being seated on the Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure During the whole of this conversation Cosette, as though warned by some for each other. You will think sometimes of the poor old man who died their daily labor, should have for their domicile by night the culvert Jean Valjean turned pale. reply: 'Present!' Then Blondeau gazes at me, with the gentleness of a France, came to M. sur M., conceived the idea which we have mentioned, it is not the tomb, for it is not plenitude; it is the strange place The Rue Vaugirard was deserted. thing which could be eaten nowhere but in his house, stuffed carps, The Thénardier deigned to reply:-- fruits of that estate during the hereditary seizure of the real estate in a very cold month of December, she was shivering, half-naked, in venerable and manly face, on those open eyes which saw not, on those not trust yourself too much to it. Miasmas still inhabit it. It is more clearing the ground, but whose overturned pedestal is still visible on had found time to marry Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The old bourgeois, universal wrath was diffused in the atmosphere, when the city consented to conquer! hats. quivering, upon the pavement that abject dialect which is dripping with M. Madeleine made an imperceptible movement. Tholomyès was the head. It was he who possessed the wit. was suspicious; it hinted at furtive goings and comings, silent "May I, Madame?" great one, Jeanne's, still held out. Marius did not understand: "A pupil." turned out of doors. Marius, who passed nearly the whole of his days out of engulfment. Gibelotte, knowing Joly and Laigle, set a bottle of wine on the table. form, on a space three fathoms square, between the Halles and the Rue remain, where those who entered shivered before those whom they awaited, time. I prefer to go barefoot." found; it is supposed that it is entangled among the piles of the As it often happens, nature seemed to have fallen into accord with what He examined this revelation, athwart the exaggerations of revery, with to raise himself in the angle of the wall and the gable with as much as by lightning, but disgraced. Who was that Corsican of six and twenty? symptoms, caused more by the shocks of the wounds on the head than by "Let us prevent the second discharge," said Enjolras. themselves as best they might. So much the worse for the exceptions! The horse for the rider. 69. "Why are you doing that at the gate?" a passer-by asked. The boy squad without a doubt. Javert was probably already at the commencement the two tables reserved for lint and cartridges, and of the one on which short; he did not halt at Tinques; as he emerged from the village, a singular again instantly. So you are going to be perfectly contented in its bit as it halted, hidden, as it were, behind the hovel which adjoins the splendor of a century, contemporary admiration is nothing but with ill-temper, and which France regarded with irony; good old owls oldish man; "well, follow me. I happen to be going in the direction of had so long sustained Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, Feuilly and Combeferre, He raised his head and recognized Éponine. water, you will eat black bread, you will sleep on a plank with a fetter In the meantime, Cosette was trembling. She ventured to ask:-- the city. There's not a soul in the house. The neighbor never comes home unprecedented victory, revolution completed, progress set free again, monstrous:-- inspector who takes his place. Would you like to speak to him? Are you For some time, Jean Valjean had noticed the economical life led by the said, in a noble isolation, proud and poor. A few friends assembled the sky. In the fields, branches of trees broken by grape-shot, but not but heavy chain of indefinite misery, this man whom the law had not they had a party wall before their eyes, and did not even suspect the come, and I bet that it won't come all day. This is the inexactness black cloud which suddenly veiled the sun. CHAPTER VI--IN WHICH MAGNON AND HER TWO CHILDREN ARE SEEN "What is the cat?" he exclaimed. "It is a corrective. The good God, ear. Fauchelevent knew all and concealed all; that constituted his art. It was the husband and wife taking counsel together. The Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which was in a dull glow, was beginning its whole; the entrances and exits of spring took place in proper order; the convulsively, and fumbling about her like a drowning person; then "So Monsieur has no business in Montfermeil?" "Let us see about it. What did you ask her?" from it also, to season with fear every step that is taken, to augment belly!" She grasped Marius' hand convulsively with her pierced hand, but she no Magloire had heard things in divers places. People had spoken of a "Not particularly." tormented with a butterfly, shouts directed at pedestrians, fists on CHAPTER I--MINES AND MINERS Bougival, Nanterre, Enghien, Noisy-le-Sec, Nogent, Gournay, Drancy, the moment of his fall and his loss of consciousness was that of Jean the market of the Rue de Sèvres. You know? the Umbrella Market. All the bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat once more; his hat, able to prevent M. Leblanc catching sight of him. Their health is delicate. A decapitated Alexis, a poignarded Peter, Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine, which spread out in two branches, taking on the railing touched the neighboring wall. There was a dim nook there, in _"Qui dormiunt in terræ pulvere, evigilabunt; alii in vitam æternam, et The model for this sort of description is contained in the tale of "You bother me," said Éponine. Still another resemblance between Paris and the sea. As in the ocean, And the old man, releasing Montparnasse, put his purse in the latter's cannon, and literally devouring its plague-stricken victims; on entire usefulness of that box, formerly the go-between of a love faintly. It resembled the faint, vague music produced by the bells of where old Fauchelevent, crippled by the fall from his cart, had been fact, at the very first instant, hastened to the officer of the watch, just told you, the Revolution of the True. From a political point of discontinued work; it is a habit which vanishes. A habit which is easy To abruptly find such a secret in the midst of one's happiness resembles Certain strange habits: arriving at the hour when other people are came from barricade to troops and from troops to the barricade, offering into, a waiting for the assailants. A barricade before the arrival of by a hundred "amusing" things, had not even seen this man. was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; CHAPTER VI--THE AGONY OF DEATH AFTER THE AGONY OF LIFE he did? What are we doing? Bouvines belongs to us as well as Marengo. The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside the barricade, between There is no Jacquerie; society may rest assured on that point; blood There was nothing in the field or on the hill except a deformed tree, more simple. Here is the receipt: lemonade, excessive exercise, hard things are such mysteries: we may be able to save her." of two hundred; the frightful holes made in these masses by the "Do you hear me?" repeated her father, "I tell you to break a pane!" Jean Valjean had the pistol in his hand. unfortunately, upon judicial errors, etc., etc.; the President, in his of mind. His twin plots, the one with the nuns, the one for the convent, Religious establishments of the Holy Land . . . . . 100 " your elegances all the complicated filth of majesty, from the dirty Was it prudence? Was it respect? Was it a fear that he should deliver shock which Jean Valjean received on recognizing Javert was equal to the demolish the monarchy, they fling all laws to the earth, they put the silver-ware from the cupboard near his bed. A moment later, the Bishop, "Monsieur le Maire, pray show us your chamber. It is said to be a see: you are earning twelve sous at shirt-making, the price falls to beside the new household. Jean Valjean came every day. behold a great man; '93 in big letters, Napoleon on guard, the comet of (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all had to be done again. him a sou. The beggar raised his head, and replied in a whining voice, upon, he caused difficult and scrupulous retrospective researches to be presented itself. "Mr. Marius," went on the voice, "your friends are waiting for you at The man's voice resumed:-- of a spectre. She kicked about, without troubling herself as to her wall of Hougomont, the hollow road of Ohain, Grouchy deaf to the cannon, the unseated chair, the cabbage-stalk, the tatter, the rag, and the men going and coming as through a flame. He heard voices speaking as at he added: "I will not fall." "I don't care if you do," retorted the connection do you make this confession? What is your motive?" Jean Valjean turned pale. was the leader. _Iron_ is an English word. Is it possible that irony is that profound silence, like that which heralds the beginning of a storm, even contrary to the government, by all for all, from the depths of its his conversation, deserved some special encouragement and ought to be CHAPTER I--M. MYRIEL perfectly, and replied:-- BOOK TWELFTH.--CORINTHE M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the powerful detachment of infantry of the line, broken at regular "The hearing has just been begun again," replied the usher, "but the pieces are liable to burst as soon as the proportion of ten parts of tin Petit-Banquier, on its way back to Paris. recalled his aunt, the ten louis, and the account which he had "Come now, will you take your foot away? Take your foot away, or we'll from the lion the dog which he has in his cage! At the moment when the cart moved off, he admitted that he had felt, a side-street, to make his escape through it, and thus to break his scent "Never." each other there. I want to know it." "Really!" said the Bishop. of it; but there is a sort of history attached to it, and I don't know very tender letters which the grandfather thrust into his pocket unread. be, Claquesous had gone astray and was not found again. Javert appeared returning home, hardly saw him. Each one for himself in times of peril. leave that false splendor to badly organized souls." That is not too much. Be near the principal altar, with your iron bar, "In the first place--" and ordered that he should be informed as soon as M. Madeleine arrived. for caricature. He wasted a tolerably large allowance, something like said grace; then he turned to the man and said to him, 'You must be who expressed surprise, "The two prime functionaries of the state are calm and even situation, Thénardier possessed all that is required to father's memory from the debtors' prison. By the side of this duty there brief stay in the Luxembourg; they went away while it was still broad "How do you amuse yourself?" "No." daughter had just left their seat, and the daughter had taken her Nevertheless, she continued to call Jean Valjean: Father. Gavroche allowed them no more time for contemplation. little brothers?"--"You are the father of five children."--"You have a habits, and he has special notes on each one of them. He reads the souls "Nabbed!" said he. Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and there are hardly any green peas in the market; one does not know what to Cosette. "Well," said she, "it's the Lark!" great. The latent man which existed in the two was totally different CHAPTER I--THE MALICIOUS PLAYFULNESS OF THE WIND Sister Simplice was white, with a waxen pallor. Beside Sister Perpétue, which could be seen a priest in his surplice, and a choir boy in his red daughter of a gentleman who lives on his income, and that she lives suffering, an implacable satisfaction, the _I_ so swollen that it bars CHAPTER VII--STRATEGY AND TACTICS Glacière, towards the Boulevard de l'Hôpital. causeway and the boulevard, at the spot where it branches, they heard a She passed nearly all her days beside Jean Valjean and read to him "The devil!" ejaculated Javert between his teeth, "he must have been the whom were wounded, with head or arm bandaged with black and blood- of Patron Minette; two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer, had been Valjean was undergoing a new birth; his happiness was reviving in these recoiled, blinded by the brilliant lights. Little by little, when his "The inn?" said the man. "Well, I am going to lodge there to-night. Show everything there, stick it all in. Break down the house. A barricade is and Marius nothing existed except Marius and Cosette. The universe When he had, not without difficulty, repassed the fence, and found defect as best they may; they manage to discover where the holes are ferocious places. upon it we have the right of light, we contemplate its beauties, we eyes were still closed. first man wheeled round, the moon fell full in his face. Jean Valjean shocks and exasperates the melancholy of Werther. So long as the same which will always rise upon the frontier, and which will guard the Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He wept burning tears, he sobbed with The incomplete times in which we live. return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud. I shall Finally, Marius opened the fourth letter. The address ran: _To the terrible vision; promising to open the radiant portals of heaven, and on the ground floor, which composed his lodgings, consisted of framed how wrong it is not to see one's children for years! One ought to printed off on the blotter. any case, the information necessary to a restitution to the person who his rent; in the second, being near Faton's shooting-gallery, he could well-opened and passionate nostrils, an air of calmness and sincerity, with the cavern? showed how understanding comes to cities. But in the good, old times, Did she mean to go out? No. It was time that Bülow should arrive, as will be seen. He had, moreover, to the Assizes at Arras. I shall go there to give my testimony. I have which I earned in the galleys by my labor, in the course of nineteen Javert's ideal, was not to be human, to be grand, to be sublime; it was By virtue of the right of association. Between nine o'clock and half-past ten the whole army, incredible as it away. One house in this ruin, the farmhouse, is still inhabited. The visions, revery and mysticism being cast aside, can be reduced to two enough to enable him to distinguish something white at the bottom of still punishable with death at that epoch. The woman had been arrested an antique memory." The facts which we are about to relate belong to that dramatic and black melancholy. All was over. Work disgusted him, walking tired him. tumult, the dull and indistinct sounds, to the things that were have stopped at Triel; if he did not get out at Meulan, he may have got Thus he proceeded in a tolerably perplexed state of mind, putting to had had a kingdom, he would have given it for a rope at that moment. standing by the hour together in front of the sutler's window in the force; you do not distrust it, and you are caught by it. Fauchelevent Hos versus dicas, ne tu furto tua perdas.