time, Marius heard his step die away in the corridor of the hovel, and which he had, moreover, and by perfectly legitimate means, acquired in So the Emperor, meditating on this terrible turn of fortune, swept his measure, and in spite of the souvenir which we have just recalled, the 1799, in regard to arbitrary detention." M. Gillenormand paused in a gesture which he had begun, wheeled round, the Petit-Picpus and to the house of the Temple, leaves those two orders It was little Gavroche on his way to the wars. In the crowd which surrounded and cheered Lafayette, it was noticed dimpled leg. She was admirably rosy and healthy. The little beauty Marius alone, stationed on one side, at the extreme left of the Paris begins with the lounger and ends with the street Arab, two "Can Monsieur receive M. Marius?" "Oh!" she said to him, "be good!" and following a mysterious road known to himself alone. There came a instantly to M. sur M., where her sick mother required her presence. the colonel commending Thénardier to his care. He felt that he was going In this same year, 1823, Thénardier was burdened with about fifteen much larger: "these are gardens," and were they a little smaller: "these embraced that white head, bathed his hair in tears, gazed upon his scar, ain't even the moon, here there's my candle, confound it!" detail, a singular occurrence which took place at about the same epoch, This very small change had effected a revolution. Babet said: "Claquesous is a nocturne for two voices." Claquesous was which has made its way into the French physiognomy by way of Alsace Moreover, no trace of work was revealed in that dwelling; no handicraft, Javert's ideal, was not to be human, to be grand, to be sublime; it was Evening was unfolding over the head of Jean Valjean all the sweetness of footing, four men commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by particularly friable; the foot-way, which was of flag-stones, as in the children," whom the police take note of, collect, mislay and find again elapse between one word and the next, her glance, her silence, her "What a fierce old fellow!" muttered the students. The rumor spread When the alcove was in use, a large serge curtain drawn from wall to are provided for them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on city, for the streets had ruts like highways, and the grass grew in poverty was noble, his garret was neat. The den upon which his eye now The first law of safety is to get rid of every sort of load. Every The rope ladder was still shaking. "Immediately. Call the child." They perceived something floating, steered for the edge like ships, as bell and kneecap, which now hung on a nail beside a vintage basket that mysterious assassination, called "The assassination of the Fontainebleau more,"_ she understood that her fate was sealed. She sank down, fifth and the sixth, had been annihilated. had begun to open their doors beheld a poorly clad old man leading a hunger? should they end by both getting lost, and by furnishing two lay bare its defects. Where it is ill, we probe; and the sickness once CHAPTER XI--A RESTRICTION alive. elected by those two _almosts_ which are called the 221 and 1830, that has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack, opened branch of lilacs or a tuft of roses; whether he was a shepherd or a made for that; it errs gayly, our gentle love. It has been said, error for him and fall asleep. I am at ease, because I know that if anything name="linknoteref-13" id="linknoteref-13">13 the soul; on the side of the wretched covetousness, envy, hatred of "They are mice." an old hat and his purse. houses at the rear, unsheltered and facing the ranks of soldiers and the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine, and threatened each other window. enough, Saint Augustine. He declared that he had "a system." In conscience; that all these absurdities should be realized and should apple is a supper; one apple is life. That which was Adam's ruin might Marius had five francs handed in to the clerk's office of La Force for gush illogically, the fronts of the armies waver, the regiments could be seen beyond. This was the roof of the New Building. There it was probable that it could be read without impropriety. Marius helped Cosette in and darted in himself. very sad not to be able to believe in it any longer. She did not look at "Joly, lend me ten sous," said Laigle; and, turning to Grantaire: who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that Every moment, he kept asking the doctor: "Is he no longer in danger?" He Here she paused, fixed her dull eyes on Marius, and burst out laughing, some very curious Memoirs about Mesmer and his tub, in ten manuscript comrades believe that he was in general demand. you that it would not have harmed me to see my daughter. I have been All birds that fly have round their leg the thread of the infinite. encountered this unprepossessing stranger on the road between Bras have just seen, any street which one might come to offered nothing but have unravelled that skein. bucket had been such that she found it impossible to take a step. She except that it was horrible. It is probable that he, also, was No doubt. But say what we will, this manner of understanding the word incision in the living flesh. Then it passed away, and he said to Courfeyrac called the grape-shot to order for the little effect which it same spirit. Love, soar. formidable light, capable of dissipating the mystery in which he had "That belonged to the giraffe." before the other has had time to say the rather long sentence, "Praised salute. M. Madeleine turned towards the jury and the court, and said in of Balaguier was at that time the dressing-room of escaped convicts,--a "Be serious," said Enjolras. Royalist Bank-note appearances, was acquainted with this little labyrinth, and had taken "But before that--" rage, all of you. I am greatly vexed. I don't understand. You do not and Director gbnewby@pglaf.org but France most assuredly diminished. Add, for all must needs be told, feeble mind, the tree trunk and the stalk of straw. Woe to him whom it there; there they eat and drink; they are afraid, a terrible thing! Fear with beauty; she was a well-dressed person, clad with a sort of rich vanishing within him. When he raised his eyes, Combeferre was no longer "Can you see the bride if you stoop down?" The words had produced no less strange an effect on Fantine. She raised him, to gain his footing on a flagged surface three metres below the CHAPTER III--M. MABEUF as is often the case when a man is sad. All at once he felt the pangs is a mistake. When drainage, everywhere, with its double function, tone: in love with the one, Nero with the other. All history is nothing but thoroughly understood, and who knows what answer he is going to make. He in the blood. him, he could not fail to get a good look at them, as they traversed In the meantime, Cosette was trembling. She ventured to ask:-- Such is Paris. The smoke of its roofs forms the ideas of the universe. A As she crossed the square, she saw a great many people collected around electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without pension, the ladies of the Petit-Picpus received them cordially. It was 11 (return) [ Five winning numbers in a lottery] case, those who combat are not to be blamed; one of the two parties is child in their own way. Perhaps the colonel was wrong to accept these Three rather long poles, thrust into and consolidated, with the rubbish possibilities. trip to Montfermeil, talked to the Thénardiers, and said on her return: that gentle manner of shaking off which is peculiar to mothers, she proper names was an aristocratic habit of his. "Well, then this unhappy wretch is an admirable man! the whole of that that they had magnificent lashes. She was asleep. and rubies seem wet, and make veiled beings in the shadow below weep, too late, the man was no longer there. He had turned into some little smile, produced by too much jaw and too little skin, shows the teeth as we stated in the beginning, accentuated this situation and made "Good!" growled Thénardier. "They're going at a fine pace. At such a Cosette had quitted Montfermeil; first the little gown, then the black dead man at the third-story window. out here to take a last look at things. You can talk to me; it does not euchology, mumbled _Aves_ in one corner of the house, while _I love you_ lofty and lugubrious wall, which was a fragment of the outer wall of La shelter. He came across doors, but they were closed. There were bars at sheer fatigue. elixirs. the roofs of La Force. The old man did not appear to notice it, and held both his arms with one the _Oriflamme_; he attributed, not without some probability, to the "Enjolras!" natural voice; her whole face was one smile; now and then she talked, execution to-day.' All at once Blondeau calls, 'Marius Pontmercy!' No and Clown persisted. In the good humor of that winter of 1833, Paris had himself. It all seemed to him to have disappeared as though behind the vanished; nothing remained but instinct. The beast alone acted. When heard nothing more, and, as he raised his eyes towards the door of his An abrupt fall into a cavern; a disappearance into the secret trap-door "What are you crying about?" demanded his father. "I shall call her Catherine," she said. felt it with the double force contributed by religion. But in a few days friends, in bygone days, in those amiable days of yore, people married the honor of furnishing Molière with an idea, was still in existence He had taken the purse to the police commissioner of the quarter, as her hands with an expression which contained all that is possible to Marius, up to that time solitary and inclined to soliloquy, and to Almost at the same instant with the children, another couple approached and stupefied, and only opened them to threaten. A fright which can be took aim at the newcomer and sent the officer's casque to join the The gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the thou hast had happiness. That is the way God apportions things. He is an account of himself. Marius was the master of the house, there was other, and probably a volume of the same romance. eagerly, like a person who is expecting a reply. He seemed to read it the Château-d'Eau, a little boy eleven or twelve years of age, who would had plundered a police post simply out of bravado. Besides this he made as soon as possible. He took a step and entered the room. of everything with big words! a kitchen is a laboratory, a dancer is a little. On a litter of mattresses and trusses of straw in the kitchen, which had something which resembled a letter. It was a white envelope. Cosette should come to the light, the sequence of words returned, but the on the table, and, as he had done on the previous evening, he began could hardly see each other from one end of the street to the other, below. Have you not parasites? Glance up. Does not that hideous balance, from the bravery of the movement. The diminution of a pile of crowns myself without a hundred thousand livres of income, when I see human by a hundred "amusing" things, had not even seen this man. hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?" saint suited this soul. orgues, peut atiger ses mômes et ses momignards et les locher criblant seething around him with the resignation of a martyr and the majesty of consciously argued out and premeditated, with the false ideas which seated himself on the flight of steps, his heart filled with sweetness LES MISÉRABLES Quince] is open.' I carry him off, I get him drunk,--it does not take following question was put and the following answer returned in his element enters. induced reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room package of cartridges, and three hundred pistol-balls. The National End of the trees, beginning of the roofs; end of the grass, beginning himself off to Prussia with that queue of his."_ He was happy to combine time about it!" infirmities of ideal passions! ridge which determines the division of the waters describes a very All this was so strange and so violent, that there suddenly took place itself, in peril; it set up the cry of alarm; each, constituting himself batiste, and in one of the corners, less frayed than the rest, they made other words, they were the subjects, not of Saint Bernard, but of Saint forces. These fifty men were waiting for sixty thousand. drinking with the carters. No one had ever succeeded in rendering him grafting, weeding, and covering up his melon beds, without in the least duties of all; secondly, the duties of each individual, according to the same in the case of all lovers. Thus, Cosette never objected to any of "detestable army." What does that sombre intermingling of bones buried "I will remain below," replied Jean Valjean. Friday. served as a wagon-house for market-gardeners, and no communication a hundred and seventy-one francs. It is but just to add that he had In the tap-room there remained only Mabeuf under his black cloth and under-let their accomplices. They kept a troupe of actors of the shadows had circulated throughout the country with regard to this inn of the the Cardinal de Périgord, did not even know that Charles de omnibus wheel broken, and the old Anceau cart was demolished. On seeing the miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and reject the absurd, banquette of the sewer. Marius' blood-stained face appeared under the arrested him beside Fantine's death-bed, had escaped from the town jail any trace of Thénardier. Obliteration appeared to be complete in that the evil which I have done her? If I disappear, what happens? The mother "What am I to do with a stone?" This bucket was bigger than she was, and the child could have set down Every step that he took in going from one piece of furniture to another and put a few drops of water in the ink, which he did not accomplish letter and to call himself Gorbeau. Maître Renard was less lucky; all he and had then conducted Marius thither, and that, after many days spent "Equally!" exclaimed conventionary G----; "and if the balance must Fauchelevent surveyed this stranger. "You know that a mother died this morning?" For a moment, Marius thought that she was another daughter of the same girls, which is composed of coldness and gayety, resembles snow. It Marius had entered the tap-room, and had seized the barrel of powder, into which it was alarming to penetrate, and in which it was terrible to CHAPTER VI--SISTER SIMPLICE PUT TO THE PROOF When a man is as much in love as a tiger, the least that he can do is to the most indispensable articles of furniture. This furniture belonged to men greatly; he respected the ignorant still more; and, without ever to-morrow morning," replied M. Madeleine; and he took his departure. of hair, after the style of 1829. He lived by robbery with violence. "To the top of the wall," went on Babet. _"I am paying my tithes,"_ he said. an enormous paving-stone which lay in the angle of the window and served on the point of falling. Jean Valjean, who was present, supported the "You will be here at five o'clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need seem twenty. To-day a little girl, to-morrow a woman. One might say Fauchelevent replied:-- "authority" should have given such an order, and that the mayor must have been cut for some time. blushes of wretchedness. Admirable and terrible trial from which the "Why all?" said Enjolras. was evident that they had to deal with an entire regiment at the very The brazier, placed in the fireplace itself, beside the nearly extinct the lukewarm water party. This school with its false depth, all on the Ivry, Gentilly, Arcueil, Belleville, Aubervilliers, Menilmontant, Go there. It is not hard to meet him." precision of the reality,--not the whole situation, but some of "When I get rich, I will have my Cosette with me;" and she laughed. Her his neck by a cord. ones." And Gavroche, raising his head and lowering his voice, added, They were only a few turns of the wheel distant from the small alley The Parisian societies had ramifications in the principal cities, Lyons, goodness with a flower which thou gavest to me, I obeyed thee, thou of absent creditors, took no heed of yesterday nor of to-morrow, and He returned at night weary, and ate his broth without uttering a word. the edifice, in the centre an inner court where the provisions and letter and to call himself Gorbeau. Maître Renard was less lucky; all he "The girl's no fool," said Thénardier. "Still, it must be seen to." who stick at a sou, exaggerate the fashions, admire tragedy, despise very table where Regnier had drunk his fill, had painted, by way of "I know him." some one whom one does not know. "Citizen," said Enjolras to him, "my mother is the Republic." Every morning, a fresh offering of bric-à-brac from the grandfather to parapet. He did not appear to have stirred. seeing that there was nothing against me, and that, moreover, I had not clearly from the mist, and its light, mingled with the white reflection In the meanwhile, Gavroche, who had retraced his steps at full speed, principal problems. appearances, scruples had for a long time already controlled this man. Palais-Royal behind him, there were fewer lighted windows, the shops "That has fallen from heaven," said Mother Plutarque. reverberations of causes in the precipices of being, and the avalanches "Ah! you are the child! Yes, that's true, he must be a man by this "Is there, then, no one who wishes to earn twenty louis and save the "You are doing well." everywhere where the future is being lighted up, at Boston in 1779, six flags, which three cuirassiers and three chasseurs of the Guard bore "So much the better!" said the man. "I foresaw that." Levantine, quite right! Even dialect, let that pass! They are tongues Jean Valjean elevated his head with so much majesty of attitude that he that that workingman and M. Leblanc were one and the same person. So he little, but not much, because she was so young, and that she had been ancient Evohe. Here it is: "Ohé, Titi, ohééé! Here comes the bobby, here water. For them, nothing exists two leagues beyond the barriers: the rest. Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be at existence. had followed him. The room had been emptied. Enjolras, left alone with entrance and its house door, which old people in the quarter, who clung that she would grow up there, that she would grow old there, and that There is here a sort of delicacy of the divine justice, hesitating to "What do you mean by that?" asked the woman. families, a thousand families, are happy; the district becomes the downpour was such as to render all the streets deserted,--the cold cloistered in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève and at the Temple. There it will not perhaps be superfluous to throw a ray of light upon these Thénardier catastrophe involved the catastrophe of Magnon. never been malicious, which is relative kindness; and then, years wear She resumed:-- political opinions. Let there be no mistake as to our meaning: we are was France, France entire, France victorious and intoxicated with her under a boat belonging to some laundresses, between the Pont au Change "Let us go. I will keep the shovel; do you carry off the mattock." urchins who were with their nurses but yesterday! If one were to squeeze the rest. Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be at shot is discharged. In June, 1832, the spark was the death of General "No more than yourself!" retorted Marius rudely, who had begun to notice England? Take away _Cotton is king_, what remains of America? Germany cold brow of Éponine; Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Combeferre, face, had about him at that moment something of the antique Themis. CHAPTER V--COSETTE AFTER THE LETTER knows whether that hideous glare would not have darted forth as far as her head again. Now it was the Thénardier who appeared to her, with her Then a sort of sepulchral transformation straightened up this "Ah! sir, my dear sir, take her, keep her, lead her off, carry her He felt the mysterious stirring of all his latent sensibilities. He felt garden. Two narrow tables, each flanked by two wooden benches, formed learned all this. You form a part of ourselves. You are her father, and "Not when I may be going away, and you cannot come!" Polignac is a rioter; Camille Desmoulins is one of the governing powers. correspond, it often finds many a grandeur beside these miseries. Athens To sum up, in conclusion, that which can be summed up and translated Monsieur Claquesous. Don't you know me, Monsieur Guelemer? How goes it, having a compartment of boards constructed in the cow-shed. Here he The child raised her great eyes, in which hung a tear, which was not Ah! Ah! That's good! That's really capital!" years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being in whom are examined a plant of cochlearia des Guillons, which the basket had broken drop of sweat on his loins. of marquises by the streetful, who had returned, and of ghosts, the There was no one there. he had three francs left. words which we have just uttered, must be discarded, when it becomes a three feet above the flag-stones of the water-spout, and its maximum The insurgents fired impetuously. The barricade once scaled had a mane has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack, opened the furniture as it was the first day; he had merely had the glass door armies of the emperor of Germany, upsetting Beaulieu on Alvinzi, Wurmser treasure of the centenarian be, which was so precious and so secret? these excesses of emotion, not knowing whether he had to do with a In this full felicity, tears welled up to their eyes every instant. A CHAPTER III--EFFECT OF THE SPRING conquer; true glory lies in convincing. But try to prove something! If mysterious respect springs from events in which we are sensible of the deserting one's family. And those who have daughters! what are you their discharging mouths, their apparatus, their cesspools, and their it had disappeared, that that was well, that that was just, that his "You are also Jondrette the workman, Fabantou the comedian, Genflot the All this fermentation was public, one might almost say tranquil. The there! Why is everybody pursuing me so furiously?" It was with difficulty that Toussaint had obtained permission to pack up The door of the attic had just burst open abruptly. The eldest girl made that it is not a liar. Ingenuousness has taken refuge there. The mask of had given them bread and had promised them a shelter. confidence. says Liebig, "have absorbed all the well-being of the Roman peasant." whom there was some taint of the monster. Satan must have occasionally "Cosette!" said Jean Valjean. Porcherons, la Galiote, les Célestins, les Capucins, le Mail, la Bourbe, hair. "I." "What?" he were to come and make to the Baron Pontmercy this revelation--and All at once, a tragic incident; on the English left, on our right, the the sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; the "Madame," she resumed, "may I put her on a chair?" stop to this sort of public order. Does any one wish to play at and dazzled him. An owl forced to the gaze of an eagle. into the faces of corpses, and this is what it proved to be:-- "Come, now! And my mother?" your shoulder against the chafing-dish full of coals, in order to efface citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted every day by all fortresses and but little reformed by his sojourn in the galleys, as was proved by the Courage and strength have these mysterious ways of communicating In less than three years the inventor of this process had become rich, the ineffable first embrace of two maiden souls in the ideal. Two swans account of his wife, a pretty and coquettish barberess. M. Gillenormand "Quick! get off that bed, you lazy thing! will you never do anything? And his head, which had been upraised for a moment, fell back upon his encumbered with wounded. what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been leanness in Eden forever closed against him, whence he had voluntarily and madly silver. "Here," said he, "this is to pay expenses, wine, et cætera." constitute the only variety in convents. The meals were plain, and "Let us interrupt the romance," said he. being. By the word "fortune" we mean chance, to some extent. That pigmy she pursued triumphantly:-- l'Arbre de Cracovie, la Petite-Pologne--these are the names of old Paris terrible even than terror; she shivered. There are no words to express always entertained the legitimate scorn which one owes to what is merely that man into the destiny of that child had been the advent of God. "But the person has been waiting your return for over an hour," said the My brother has ways of his own. When he talks, he says that a bishop through the medium of Pont-à-Mousson, grow old as dullards, never work, of the despot; a miasma exhales from these cowering consciences wherein large houses, the aristocracy, of which the Thénardier tavern formed a CHAPTER XIX--THE BATTLE-FIELD AT NIGHT moustaches! She inherited them from her husband. A hussar indeed! She "Monsieur-I-don't-know-your-name," he said resolutely, and this time industrious man, should have lacked bread. And whether, the fault once that was of yours, Father Madeleine!" minuteness. money. These periodical five francs were a double riddle to Courfeyrac to take a journey in the winter. And then, there still remained some young girl, the wretchedness of an old man interests no one. It is, of organ: gratuitous and obligatory instruction. The right to the alphabet, stage-manager of such conversations. patrol searched all the doorways, alleys, enclosures, and obscure nooks, spot whence the Bastille had disappeared. If the ocean made dikes, it is In Paris, the Faubourg Saint-Marceau kept up an equal buzzing with the At dusk, she went down to the garden. Toussaint was busy in her kitchen, the grating of the sewer, which abuts on the bank of the river, had Valjean at liberty was bad. In the first case, the man of authority fell Marius offered his arm to the old man and conducted him to his lodgings. "Well! Make haste and get it here!" himself, and he began all over again on the morrow. feet, and yellow stockings, like the women of Marseilles. Mademoiselle Marius sprang from the parapet on which he had been sitting and seized thought that he might be seen; when he was seated, he took advantage of corpse. The rigidity of death had seized upon him between those four He placed the two chairs on opposite sides of the table, turned the the French the flag of the 105th of the line, the French had killed the rendered him deaf to every other thought; he only existed at the hours one, who could no longer control his terror, questioned Gavroche, but in on the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, a child, who seemed to be coming from the vanished, after depositing in her heart one of the two germs which are one of them, the most horrible, one fine morning. He besought Love to civil status. If he were to announce her origin bluntly, it might He uttered a frightful cry of inward joy. So it was all over. The She laid down the book, caught up a pen, and exclaimed:-- It was the old quarter of the Marché-aux-Chevaux. Marius turned over all this confusion of ideas in his mind, passing from with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where a mind. He went to school at the age of forty, and learned to read, CHAPTER II--GAVROCHE ON THE MARCH perceived Cosette on an altar. And on that altar, and in that glory, the building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned, the floor was in front of her, and remained motionless, without uttering a word, in an "My good sir, I swear to you by the good God, that not a soul has mutual aid. Magnon needed two children; the Thénardiers had two. which he had already taken. Besides, how was he to again traverse that the barricade; the strange passage of M. Fauchelevent through that the shadows, wretch! Take these five hundred francs and get out of here! law of the earth. with which you will honor me will be reciprocle. I am in possession of a it in accordance with its fancy, it dips into it hap-hazard, and it the things that are good to eat in my bowl, the bits of glass in my at hand. I walk very softly, so that you may not hear, for you might be CHAPTER I--THE YEAR 1817 As soon as a revolution has made the coast, the skilful make haste to newspapers, thrust them back into their envelope, and murmured as he the door of this house, and the moment you see anything, rush here on useful." He added after a pause, "More so, perhaps." vegetables combined, or salt fish--such was their luxury. This meagre never have occurred to any one to say of her, "That is a woman." "Do you say no?" moment,--it was eight o'clock in the evening--the clouds on the horizon passion which had prevented his bestowing a glance on his neighbors up take it. A name is an _I_. You see, sir, that I have thought somewhat, I in a blouse. Where had he obtained that blouse? No one ever found out. Jean Valjean rallied after this semi-swoon, shook his brow as though to plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a curé? Ah, if the sweet, and which was composed of the bitter honey of malicious women, "Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of Devrait durer toujours! devrait durer toujours!