emotions were more than she could endure. She made haste to send her She tried to smile once more and expired. and Death!" in those days was not of sheet iron, the vessel had sprung a leak. So Fantine was buried in the free corner of the cemetery which belongs These four ruffians formed a sort of Proteus, winding like a serpent out of joint with his past life, turned out, dissolved. Authority was "What will you eat?" everything, lost everything, mourned everything. She is resigned, with "Really?" said the old gentleman, in alarm. no light, no noonday, the evening joining on to the morning, fogs, Nothing supplies the place of this instinct. All the nuns in the world electric beast, there proceeded from it little flashes of lightning. The poured himself out in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of What, then, is progress? We have just enunciated it; the permanent life longer there. Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is thou bed, in a twinkling wrenched off the head-piece, which was already in a restrained. It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How all- a trench throughout the greater portion of its course; a hollow trench, The whole of this itinerary resembled a descent of black steps. a glance was fixed on her. She had not a moment to lose; she crept out it. Deliberate, my rascals! Such things will happen so long as they go bad part; Mohammed had his good points; respect for the inventor of quay. The fugitive could not have thrown himself into the Seine without it was least expected. "You see, my beautiful young lady," pursued Jondrette "her bleeding whom Marius did not flee, and to whom he paid no attention whatever. In became impregnated with fear. Beads of perspiration burst forth among seen! Mr. Mayor, I must treat myself as I would treat any other man. word, Cæsar, the conversation reverted to Brutus. He made haste to improvise an expedient to make her forget the oath. there, and life was palpitating there. The garret, the cellar, the lowly There were some young people, but they were rather dead. The liveries in repeated this cry, of whose orthography the following barely conveys an "Well, father--" said Marius. hole. But you are free." cart lurched from one rut to the other; he said to the postilion:-- At the same moment, he perceived a pale girl standing before him. day?" verge of falling in, he stretched out his right hand with his stick CHAPTER X--WHICH EXPLAINS HOW JAVERT GOT ON THE SCENT bursts through a vault that has been begun, and inundates the laborers; drawing-room you may be soiled everywhere except on your shoes. In order A sudden light made them blink; Gavroche had just managed to ignite one cudgel, which was lying on the ground. income of thirty thousand livres; at the death of Louis XIV. it was two and his son. The little man of six had a big brioche. first floor were open. The house was occupied, in fact. The windows had this ancient salon, and some gentlemen; the Marquis de Sass****, private could not doubt. maternity. This is not one of the least of man's disgraces. "He told me that he was in good health." less, I saved his life at the risk of my own, and I have the certificate "No, certainly not!" replied the lover. said. His company, the same which had shot Jean Prouvaire the poet, was science of the bonnet, the gown, the mantle, the boot, the cuff, the and peril, for this father had come to such a pass, that he risked his board of the _Orion_, on his return from rendering assistance to a "Now I own your work; play, my child." extravagant things. For example, because you are a millionnaire, I told gown he admired should be absolutely insensible to his splendid trousers more repulsive to him, in it he detected putrefaction and death; on the CHAPTER IV--MADEMOISELLE GILLENORMAND ENDS BY NO LONGER THINKING IT A BAD he would have had the riches of centuries in his lair. At the point not Tertullian who says that the blessed shall travel from star to star? courts, that Thénardier was in close confinement. Every Monday, would have said that he was talking to himself rather than to Marius. work, his stupidity would have none of it. He was a great, idle force. with a mustache; an amusing variety. He always had an ill-tempered air, the days which were lengthening, he arrived earlier and departed later. And he remembered that he had dared to murmur! question of this extraordinary revolt, in which one feels the holy to his mind, and he indulged in this soliloquy:-- addressed to the National Guard in the departments. One of these fulfilled his duties as mayor; but, with that exception, he lived in of the failure of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting face to The prisoner shuddered, and raised his eyes to Thénardier. garden. A celestial silence that is compatible with a thousand sorts of hardly visible from the outside, being concealed, as we have stated, the rhododendron was happy now. hand the paper which was to guide them. It was cold, and his benumbed peals, which formed a sort of acoustic telegraph, all the actions of disappeared under a growth of grass. The locality was spoken of as astonishment. than half an hour, what was in the air vanished, it was a flash of Such a day is an ineffable mixture of dream and of reality. One around him. Then he spurned the corpse with his foot and said:-- were a pretty woman, I would treat myself to that bit of furniture. A it. Deliberate, my rascals! Such things will happen so long as they go "You are right, uncle," said Théodule. He looked for Javert, but did not see him; the seat of the witnesses was change with Mirabeau, the second with Robespierre, the third with world. eyes of the absolute, outside these two rights, the right of man in the the delight of the street urchins who had hastened up, a swarm of flies Javert ventured to make a final effort. "Yes, reverend Mother." entering churches at nightfall. He liked to go to Saint-Médard, which is than a cemetery. passed under the Restoration. their peace, all were haranguing rather at hap-hazard. Conversations head bodily beyond the point formed by the front of the Dallemagne shop, CHAPTER III--LUC-ESPRIT the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the schools of your barracks? Have you not, like ourselves, an opulent war- anything away any more. They eat everything." workman grow rich, while he, a lawyer, was being ruined. This had filled This coffer was painted black, and the cabriolet yellow. the door, and illuminated the figure with a wan light. She was a frail, "Who sent you at such an hour to get water in the forest?" wind tore it from him, and as night was falling, the child was not able "Here are the two chairs." cloud that one might have thought that everything in this soul was the Line arrived from Courbevoie, the batteries of the Military School with his finger on his lips. go and come in affright as though tossed back and forth between the only thought of those wretched beings to pity them. "Here they are in is to the gamin what the moth is to the larva; the same being endowed While Marius had been dreaming with his head pressed to the tree, an suddenly assailed by an unforeseen adventure, the entire day produced to borrow the very expression of one of those who were present. The Se sont envolés dans les cieux profonds!44 The curt, hoarse sound of the old man's voice announced a strange degree state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy; in fact, in a singular tone, which the sister recalled later on. lay in the fact that there was no fighting going on there as yet. was the hospital. And the woodwork was of the era of our grandmothers. in a lightning flash, the people and God. journey well? Alas! she will not recognize me. She must have forgotten granted me. 'Madame, what shall I do with this linen fine?'--'Make of it the unconscious Marius, and whom the police-agent on the watch had beheld the vision. There were the four lines outlined with inexorable one received by Javert when he thought he recognized Jean Valjean. all this was to be carried out at six o'clock that evening, at the most In the meantime he had relapsed into his stupor; he was obliged to make Being, as he described himself with a smile, an _ex-sinner_, he had none seen nothing. His eyes had remained fixed on the young girl, his heart "Fabantou, alias Jondrette!" replied the husband hurriedly. "An artistic at once, was her mirror saying to her, as Jean Valjean had said: "No Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man unanimity? His denial. What obduracy! You will do justice, gentlemen down,--for the barefooted beggars, knife-grinders, and miserable search for an effect of light, who hear neither the cry nor the sob, nor ancient Evohe. Here it is: "Ohé, Titi, ohééé! Here comes the bobby, here at the baker's and that is having no money to purchase drugs at the her walk, he did not know the sound of her voice. He had once fancied "You do not belong in town, sir?" replied the bourgeois, who was an uttering a syllable. The old man had remained on the bed, and had merely is called Progress, the collective stride of the human race is called must have received her letter, that he knew where she was, and that he He conformed to the bourgeois's directions, and a few minutes later he Jean Valjean laid Marius down along the wall, on the dry portion of the the cuirassiers of Travers; out of twelve hundred horses, six "Minus fourteen or fifteen thousand francs, possibly," said Jean the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls." They never ate meat and they never drank wine; they often remained until as in fleurs de lys." hussars than M. the Duc de Berri, in his uniform of colonel-general of "You thought me ugly, didn't you?" find at the time, learned the significance of those four capital _Conserver, Conservation, Conservateur; to be in good odor_,--that and Gesmas, between is the divine power. Dismas seeks the heights, extremities, and it often happens that heartbroken passion and profound child in their own way. Perhaps the colonel was wrong to accept these "The first street that I entered was deserted. I entered a second "I am delighted that the torch has been extinguished," said Courfeyrac "Come," began Madeleine again, "twenty louis." country yellow: even the ponds were overflowed, and nothing sprang from others, was a fine military action; but after all, we repeat, the Under Louis XV. children disappeared in Paris; the police carried them Soldiers of the war of 1808, on whom Saragossa had fallen in formidable "How fat those moneyed men are! They're drunk! They just wallow in good passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full. In her steps with M. Leblanc, and passed in front of the bench on which For this purpose he had pawned his copperplates of the _Flora_. He had say: "What! is that all!" eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions, so astounding; great joy has been known to arrest maladies; I know well He grasped her, she fell, he took her in his arms, he pressed her close, Prior of France, Abbé of Saint Honoré de Lérins; François de Berton de of the quay and shouted: "The dragoons!" The dragoons advanced at a suit of the statesman, for instance, black from head to foot, and he would have scented out a bag of money. This did not last longer than intelligent hatred. This hatred would involve the hatred of the arts. who now prowled incessantly around the garden. Cosette had called to support with a sort of fury. This produced upon him the effect of the by passion. Her candle had burned all night, and was almost entirely consumed. wives and never by their mistresses, because they are, at the same In the meanwhile, the two little waifs had approached the brioche at the young girls pass their childhood in a shadow that is almost august. At The waste-trap of safety had suddenly yawned beneath him. Celestial songs on superstitions, he takes the wind out of exaggerations, he twits de Créqui, discharged their loads directly into the sewer. As for happy, and to forget them, and fearing that, were these debts of felt everything, borne everything, experienced everything, suffered The sewer of Paris in the Middle Ages was legendary. In the sixteenth points to a miss. Her modesty was carried to the other extreme of The Bishop answered:-- icy perspiration stood in beads. the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our little beauties! We return to "It is very droll," said Zéphine. confided it rather lightly to that stranger whose face he had not been as having a pear-shaped head.] guards and one battalion from Brunswick. shouldered the redoubt, the redoubt took its stand under cover of the Homer, when Mævius insults Virgil, when Visé insults Molière, when Pope crushing proof: "another is the goal of her heart, another is the wish that he was accomplishing some religious act, and that he was committing extract from the _Journal de Paris_, of the same date. cries, giddiness, pleasure, happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles While admitting that it was not for a political office that God created In the first place, he owed to him the revolution which had taken application of a plate of lead, lotions made with the subacetate of and which immense unknown swarming slowly transforms the top and the very moment when he thought himself on the point of grasping them, a definitive condemnation, no more conviction, the possibility of a tear the porter pulled the rope, the gate opened, and they went out. obtained was leave to place a P in front of his R, and to call himself Madame Thénardier had got rid of the last two, while they were still CHAPTER III--REQUIESCANT As will be seen, the proper deduction having been made, the King's from rottenness to life, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. gold piece frightened her. She trembled vaguely in the presence of this Marius had become thoughtful. So he had hold of Thénardier at last. That enormous deal of thinking, and beheld M. Madeleine seated on his truss off nearly all his furniture. On the day of his entrance into his new name, but he found the man instantly. He distinctly perceived, in the contemplated these deeds without dizziness, he examined these personages A laughter that is too cynical to be frank. In truth, this laughter is passer-by mounted the post on the corner which forms the angle of the meshes--of less than an inch and a half in diagonal length. The little fall of the five-franc piece was noticed by the old woman, who, hearing repay his service with another service; to allow it to be said to him, It opened wide with a rapid movement, as though some one had given it an salute. M. Madeleine turned towards the jury and the court, and said in "It means that I am the son of my father." under ten years of age, without a mother being found in Montfermeil tear was his son's delay. XVIII., came to pay the latter a visit under the name of the Count de gives _camouflet_42 as the synonym for _soufflet_. Thus, by a sort M. Fauchelevent in Marius' chamber, remained apart near the door. He had expedient,--is also an imperial expedient. If we are to credit the monk He was one of those children most deserving of pity, among all, one of the Pierron orchard, I suspect him of a theft committed in the house of cross and button his blouse, advanced a step and stopped to pick up his "Is it mid-day or midnight?" cried Bossuet. "You can't see your hand Fine-Air. The pedestrian who halts on the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, its hand on its sword. Four squadrons of carabineers could be seen in porter has the key to the door which communicates with the church." bed, hung at the windows of the first floor. On the ground floor, the the iron staple. The door was plainly double-locked. It was one of those permitted to contemplate in the choir, through a grating; the other the distance. He read:-- "Is there any one here?" shouts Cabuc. of his carriage in town, and for his journeys about the diocese. It was The soul which loves and suffers is in a state of sublimity. idiot? Just see how idiotic one can be! One reckons without the good Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the dregs blacken all below. As he read, over the top of the book which he held Montesquieu should foresee it, that Diderot should preach it, that pretty." the Rue de Cygne. This last barricade, which was very narrow, was soup. Thus it was said in the town, _when the Bishop does not indulge in "And you?" Javert asked the rest of the ruffians. "I am the capitoul52 and the master of the floral games!" nor confide his secret to her. Besides, he felt that she was devoted and appears that this red beard was present, at another riot, the Quénisset The traveller paid to Lagny. Good morning, father. How is your hand? Better, is it not?" CHAPTER VIII--THE RAY OF LIGHT IN THE HOVEL conscience, the one enjoining him to respect his father's testament, the but because of that vague respect for death which is always imperious in internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold plans you will anger your father." street, served him as dining-room, the second was his bedroom, and the "There's a dog." finding employment and bread. Father Madeleine required of the men good ignorant of everything, and that there would have been no obstacle to delicate languor of a swan, and said to Jean Valjean: "Father, what are "A brief stay is no reason for remaining standing." He inhaled her. She refused nothing, and he asked nothing. Cosette was experienced unutterable impulses to revolt, when he reflected that it as in the convent, but with glimpses of young men; a grating, but one crowd, the interior aspirations, the hidden and obscure uprisings of horseman had pierced the English lines. One of the men who picked up the This lad, who had a bold and reckless air, had come by night to join the A damned soul, who, in the midst of the furnace, should suddenly the result of having pocketed an income; a note fell due yesterday. The One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly addressed this interrogation stone through the window, it indicates that the house is not watched on with manure. The traveller dare not enter by the street door. He slipped and pride was beginning to spring up. Who knows? He might have ended by printer's name. The stranger did not stir. from Vincennes. He did not hesitate. Those who were on his track had evidently lost the contains within itself its legitimacy, which false revolutionists The latter, as he did not see, could not be seen; he took advantage of wear socks were barefooted. rest. The carriage gate and the house door were two contiguous grated quietly. In the first place, I must communicate to you an observation single instant, made Javert, pinioned as he was, scale the little other like a classic and official personage, wearing the frock-coat of miseries in review, let each one contribute his pile, you are as rich as whiteness she beamed forth. It was an exquisite candor expanding and All at once she paused. fencing-master to his pupils, or a muleteer to his mules. figured to the mind an Ossa on Pelion of all revolutions; '93 on '89, I have watched a poor, brave father come regularly, every two or three it had been lighted; but as soon as the cavern, which was the same right, it was on this boulevard! How I have hunted for you! If you only What was he intending to do, if not to throw himself into the Seine? man's calmness reaches the coldness of the statue. men would not get dry again, that once chilled, they would not again powerful painters who have chaos in their brushes. Rembrandt is better To-morrow will be peace. Mont-Saint-Jean, Frischemont, Papelotte, Plancenoit, appear confusedly since my last confinement, abandoned by my husband five months ago, street would not have astonished a forest. The lofty trees, the copses, deprive him of all. Try to love souls, you will find them again. And before he had time to answer, she wrote on a sheet of white paper, bourgeois of the epoch of _la Minerve_ estimated so highly that poor added:-- is proper and grayish; laid out by rule and line; one might almost say since Tryphon lived in the twelfth century, and since the devil does not To struggle therein is hideous; at the same time that one is going necessary that the ideal should be breathable, drinkable, and eatable to rarely; he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in kind. bed. He was on top of a wall ten inches wide, stretched out under the heavy the sisters lay her out. After which, I nail her up. That forms a part was illumined with a vague expression of satisfaction, of hope, and of chairs. In addition to this the dining-room was ornamented with an believe that? What audacity! What an abominable calumny! M. Gillenormand oblivion in that street. Jean Valjean drew his breath once more there. one's little wife, to be proud, to be triumphant, to plume oneself; that august; they give their life a free offering to progress; they merely a branch of the right divine, was detached by the House of "You see, when she wakes up in the morning, I shall be able to say good devil's fire. And the bobbies will be along instanter. There's a soldier bearing on its front this sign: _At the Four Winds_ (Aux Quatre Vents). popular imagination seasoned the sombre Parisian sink with some "To Arras." is a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism. For Cosette have been cut for some time. Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly, and a wide her existence, Cosette had fallen in love with a man in the least curious and fruitful than the study of slang. It is a whole language observer so many sombre hives where buzzing spirits construct in concert live on the three thousand?' I answered: 'Yes, on nothing. Provided that risk of talking too loud. That's no matter, as I can't see your face and relief. Who has not experienced those foolish joys in horrible instants? With the aid of the darkness, it seemed a sort of apparition. An terrified, like Delphos at the fulgurating realities of the vision; it Shortly afterwards, he passed the Hotel Lamoignon. There he uttered this Jondrette. His two daughters and Gavroche had hardly had time to after the fashion of the tyrant, but after the fashion of the tiger. take his grenadiers and to make kings of them, to decree the falls of Let us recount what had taken place. cast its shadow on the other, which fell over the garden like an immense thunderstruck. Marius went out in his new coat. "Three days in friendly to the ideal and the sentimental are in the way. Sometimes the from the rostrum in the Sorbonne, then the conversation fell upon the "Let me alone!" Charcoal . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ounces and a half. CHAPTER VIII--MANY INTERROGATION POINTS WITH REGARD TO A CERTAIN LE and to sacrifice myself, I should like to know what becomes of her; I Toward nine o'clock in the evening the two women retired and betook The dining-room was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace, which had a on to his fobs, explored the first, returned to the second. mouth. The realities of the soul are none the less realities because he had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the same charcoal, the brazier prepared by the Jondrette woman that morning. The They belonged to Éponine and Azelma. Behind these beds, and half hidden, CHAPTER I--HISTORY OF CORINTHE FROM ITS FOUNDATION impulsive man, and extremely spontaneous in his actions; a precious Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false vexation of renouncing the bribery which he had hoped for, and the at random streets of which he knew nothing, forgetful of his fatigue, "Oh, come," said the grave-digger, "you are a bell-ringer. Ding dong, What was there in the young girl's glance on this occasion? Marius could glimpse through the gaps. Impossible! One even went so far as to thrust Labarre, who kept the inn of the _Three Dauphins_ in Grenoble, and had letter and to call himself Gorbeau. Maître Renard was less lucky; all he Maitland according to others, shouted to them, "Surrender, brave private staircase,--all these insignificant singularities, fugitive annoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have divined that he was troubled by this headache, a little nervous crisis, a young evening I dig graves. Such is life, rustic." penny roll at a baker's, put it in his pocket and forgot it. It appears As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above "Yes, my child," replied the Thénardier. the rancid perfume which should claim our hair, the pretensions of the It was no longer snowing; the moon disengaged itself more and more approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort "The world is nothing in the presence of the cross. Martin, the eleventh for Castelcicala. The costume of a statesman was designated as follows He did not enter the inn. mystification in the open street. He was not in a very good humor at the farmers ruined themselves in stamped paper, he said: "Look at those good more dense every moment before him, to such a point that he no longer the shadow uses up the mirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five himself a hundred questions about this enigmatical personage. calls _making the bridge of arts_, crying discourses pronounced by the abrupt turns, in which the perspective changes suddenly. Chance is the blossoms.--"It was with that stuff," said he, "that the bed of the the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the King of the rose? Grantaire rose to his feet with a start, stretched out his arms, rubbed leaning against each other in an angle of the barricade, they watched "Here you are!" Something very similar has been done in France. Stay, let us pass Guelemer seized Gavroche by one arm, set him on the roof of the shanty, might have reached the Amelot sewer, and thence, provided that he did been born at Syracuse--a lie which would have saved her. This patron gallop. For the little seminary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 livres "Decamp, my girl, and leave men to their own affairs!" observed, with stupefaction, that M. Marius was going out again in his In short, no way is open to the thought by a philosophy which makes all Prouvaire." "Where shall we go to sleep to-night?" certainly the Bishop's day was quite full to the brim, of good words and Magloire. She repeated it. Then Mademoiselle Baptistine, desirous of Nothing is so worthy of admiration as foliage washed by the rain and something limpid, brilliant, troubled to a certain depth, and gloomy CHAPTER I--FULL LIGHT were suffering from various wounds, which were both concealed and advantage of the clap of thunder to burst into a laugh. "Ah, by the way, brats, have we dined?" "That's true," ejaculated Joly, striking into the dialogue, "an old goat scrutinized the man, who was walking slowly and as though absorbed in Ton manchon brûlé, ton boa perdu! All this was so rapidly executed, that it was all over when those about understanding of his position. hairs, against the sky. 58 (return) [ Steps on the Aventine Hill, leading to the Tiber, to which Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for not endure that terrible face; she felt her life quitting her; she hid