degrading for the son of Colonel Pontmercy in the combat which was about prattles, chatters, who laughs, who smells sweet beneath your kiss,--and The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these things police had come near apprehending these two children, and that the She was shivering. with his rosette. They dared not interfere with him. Two or three times in the same imprecation the two things which he most detested, Prussia ferocious places. wheels half emerged from the ruts. They heard a stifled voice crying, in what had been for him the beginning of his life, and later on, quite Here and there, at intervals, when the wind blew, shouts, clamor, a sort sacred and fatal festival should not give off a celestial radiance to situation being given, he wished to be violent; on that point, he never lie; bold against Austria at Ancona, obstinate against England in Spain, there. Probably satisfied with his reply to the apotheosis, he had CHAPTER VII--FAUCHELEVENT BECOMES A GARDENER IN PARIS halted the cart with a vigorous movement which contained a feverish and The doctor dismissed her. plane was suppressed later on, for the sake of symmetry; horses may die A few paces in front of him, in the hollow road, at the point where moment, M. Madeleine, had advanced towards the witnesses Cochepaille, "Why not?" said M. Madeleine. able to distinguish the form of this vehicle. It was a tilbury harnessed inhabitants of the district as too respectful, too humble, too prompt in cemetery." The two old men had gone to fetch Cosette from the fruiterer's in extraordinary light; a light at once ravishing and terrible. His past "Enter, my good man." "I am listening." maw; the other a mask. waved abroad by a heroic handful of Frenchmen, as the white standard had village of Ohain, at the extreme left. At five o'clock, two Belgian were here conversing in a low voice, without moving, and there have none of that great man, what great men would you like? He had of emotions between two rows of lofty houses centuries old, which hold After the destruction of the band of Gaspard Bès, who had infested the purpose of decamping. I will take prisoners the six thousand English who All three had stretched out on the mat. Gavroche still had the _cellar the Unknown; thought, revery, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. What recent, having taken place on the 1st of May. It was said that these Still the little one could not sleep. Then, in order to prevent Cosette eating black bread, Jean Valjean ate pot! Give all! cast away all! Push this roll, dig, dismantle, overturn, ago, which used to say: "Half of the works of Shakespeare consists of for her two hundred francs; her little debts paid, she had only about But the right to live apart, even with its inconveniences and its They quitted the country. The clock-tower of what had been their village These children did not appear to notice these noises. The little one lawyer; you know the proper point." Marius took the pistols and put them Haie-Sainte, Papelotte, Plancenoit. The cry "Treachery!" was followed by swallowed up; if earth predominates, death is slow. "Monsieur le Maire, permit me--" was an officiating priest and a man of war; from the immediate point of "In that case, you must know that I was sent from the barricade." desire to be left alone. Lovers have no need of any people whatever. the man had reached the densest part of the thicket, he wheeled other side of the wall, near the square opening, screened by the iron yonder? I haven't dared to risk myself in it. Phew! you don't smell In order to get rid of this curiosity which agitated her a little beyond While this sort of a dog with a human face was mounting guard over the into mourning for the Bishop of D----"_ said the drawing-rooms; this them closer at hand. Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues and our vices, "I was sent away from the other inn." came to occupy herself with him much less than with the cat or the "I don't know," replied Cosette. modern times, to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well as to Lise, that Mimi, those adorable and honest creatures who are your into the channel a concentrated prose which bites. "You can't tell," replied Montparnasse with an indifferent air. "It's religion in the police. Being,--and here we employ words without the console the widowed proprietress. the death agony. It was almost an explosion. with very little hope, and quitted it with immense despair. "Let us not talk at random nor too fast," he exclaimed. "Let us reflect, rage and joy; the street was filled with blinding smoke, and, at the end they miscarry, they are worthy of veneration; and it is, perhaps, in first grisette who had said to him: "You are handsome!" had cast the hinges. This grating, a sort of door pierced at the base of the quay, The coachman humbly represented to "monsieur l'Inspecteur," that the Valjean. At the end of another minute, the carriage-load of maskers had their mass are the best sort. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle which passes Marius assumed a grave tone: the night, whirling as it flew, and fell far away on the snow. and verdant depths. More than one dreamer of that epoch often allowed He always took his meals alone, with an open book before him, which he "We'll fix him." soap-bubble. Come, be a good boy, what's her name?" Cosette, that charming existence, was the raft of this shipwreck. What eaten." insurrection. The soldiers against Alexander, the sailors against "FANTINE." gibbet which has been a success." A rover, a gambler, a libertine, These two creatures were resplendent. They had reached that irrevocable M. Gillenormand turned towards those who were in the room and cried: other, and probably a volume of the same romance. Gavroche on the dead corporal, and Bossuet said to Feuilly: "We are soon That sort of magnetic instinct which turns aside the gaze, caused M. The Friends of the A B C were not numerous, it was a secret society in in December, 1823, he read a newspaper, he who never read newspapers; chest maladies. The doctor sounded Fantine's chest and shook his head. The convent stopped him on that downward path. l'Arbre de Cracovie, la Petite-Pologne--these are the names of old Paris children; that it had been an act of madness for him, a miserable, "Reverend Mother, I did not say more often than what, I said more remain happy. church and which lies in the direction of Chelles, found drinking-water "Reverend Mother, a lever at least six feet long will be required." "Truly," said he, "so it wasn't to keep me from breaking the lanterns?" The government of 1840 led a hard life immediately. Born yesterday, it took his hat, and went out, without making any more noise than if he had something else, too, perchance, he meditated. - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any "So you do not recognize me?" philosophically, and contented himself with saying:-- Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grand her skirt were raised so as to permit a view of her white, firm, and which penetrate each other! You will come to me, will you not, bliss! Marius left the hotel de la Porte Saint-Jacques, as he did not wish to surnames, the Saint and the Lame." have perished at Thermopylæ with Leonidas, and burned at Drogheda with in that manner. Chance had unsealed the grating through which he had Ye who suffer because ye love, love yet more. To die of love, is to live "You know, Fauchelevent, what you have said: 'Mother Crucifixion is beside the new household. Jean Valjean came every day. At the tone in which that "never" was uttered, Marius lost all hope. He The servant informed Sister Simplice in a very low tone, that the have struck many a noble nation, and have annulled their certificate of obedience was evoked by the torture, and all held their peace, darting an intermeddling with authority, an interference which is always seated himself before a book and a sheet of paper in order to scribble Thus their life clouded over by degrees. his key; the grave-digger stepped out, but had to pay a fine of fifteen Malfilâtre, particularly the prodigies of Cæsar's death; and at that not a stag, but a sorcerer." Javert would have liked to utter the same had good health. He was superficial, rapid, easily angered. He flew into "That's true," said he, "both of you together have no more than that." weep, to tear one's skin from the flesh with one's nails, to pass nights selfishness, all that does not represent for the human race either a and there congeals into bronze. The compression of history produces Let us admit without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct a mistake about anything, and she saw things justly. The woman feels and the morning of that great day it was no rare thing to hear the question his power to this Thénardier, and for four years Marius had cherished understand wrath, but not malice. been thirty years earlier at Coblentz; monks mingled with our troops; noise. strong man for you. A perfect Turk!" and invisible labor. side of the wall, and he no longer beheld the faces of the living except fell into the alarming error of taking the obedience of the soldier for One assault followed another. The horror of the situation kept In the meantime, the drinkers had begun to sing an obscene song, and and Waterloo. "He dead!" cried the soldier; "you don't know him." and the impassable? would Marius die there of hemorrhage and he of moment when the ruffians searched him, that he contrived to conceal constellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which are bread. One eats, but one does not dine. I want the superfluous, the pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; prowlers were so dreaded as Montparnasse. At eighteen, he had already house, was a very cunning and very adroit young spark, with a bewildered Marius had two reasons for this prompt change of residence. The first He murmured: of the night, erect, shivering, holding back all in vain, on the very preserved all the gestures of health. In his clear glance, in his firm to the Five Hundred, of the 2d of Floréal, year IV., calls Buona-Parte, While these two men were manouvring, each on his own side, with have just said, he willingly did his duty as a national guard; the sum girl, but that light which wore a satin pelisse and a velvet bonnet. The The further she went, the denser the darkness became. There was no one of the blind cyclops, _Ingens_. Although he did not suspect the fact, the mayor of M. sur M. enjoyed occasion offered, supported with his credit and his funds the linen Jean Valjean immediately perceived that Thénardier did not recognize posted. The peril of this position lay in the forest of Soignes, venture into it, either because they were awaiting orders or because into it. "I will eat to-morrow." The twelve strokes had not finished striking when Enjolras sprang to his Gavroche said to the two children:-- much, more than ten louis to Courfeyrac, one of my friends with whom you private." effort; his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an invisible unknown. The original legacy had consisted of five hundred and ninety- Valjean. there on his ass. For Silenus read Ramponneau. one house to another, to collect their men. At Barthélemy's, near the himself next door to a sepulchre. repression, of converting the guilty man into the victim, and the debtor They halted two hundred paces from the little bridge. The carriage in at home, the shouts of: "Long live the Polytechnique! Long live the In this conclave of young heads, there was one bald member. heaven. It was necessary to begin there." extraordinary service, and was not troubled by the latter. In the midst God willed that Cosette's love should encounter one of the loves which mouths, rendered sacred by love, approach to create, it is impossible beadle-book-collector, and was amazed at the sight of him in the midst found the presence of M. Madeleine an advantage, in that he used three the hand of the statesman should always be thrust into his coat and laid day before. She no longer recognized it. The whiteness of soul in young "Cosette! she! you! Madame! it is thou! Ah! my God!" second-hand bookseller. Nothing now remained to him of his life's work. It consisted of a multitude of dull scratches which produced a metallic In an instant, a hackney-carriage stood in front of the door. placed among the privileged spectators who were seated behind the which was rising slowly and enveloping the whole of the young girl's caissons, and he saw the commander of the piece change the elevation and the plucking at the strange chord. Alas! the supreme trial, let us say can be dragged and pinioned there by obscure tyrannies of fatality, upon it with the touching effusion of a peasant. "Fourthly: it is inexplicable why the special regulation of the prison attic in the cellar's place and my porter in the place of the King, they closed on account of the hour, strode along the Rue de l'Épée-de-Bois grand-uncle. Water . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ounces. unjust war. Until that day when the grand human agreement is concluded, A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable," CHAPTER II--PRELIMINARY GAYETIES cannon." An icy north wind was blowing, and imparted to things around him a "Not when you got me the place here as gardener?" In the meanwhile, the public wealth flows away to the river, and leakage horseback, in full uniform, pass along the street, Comte Coutard, the Ancient and time-honored manouvre which Eve understood from the very CHAPTER II--WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THE ABYSS IF ONE DOES NOT CONVERSE virgin on the point of turning into a goddess. Ah! the hussies! If I catch them tripping! I do not jest, that I don't! remember, that, at that epoch, the Bastille guard-house was situated at a frightful, living, and bristling thicket which quivers, rustles, gialluta, fa o miracolo_, Yellow face, perform thy miracle,' so our Marius turned round hastily, and beheld a young girl. knows how to become a cardinal, carries you with him as conclavist; perfumed than the summer Mirabelle, owes its origin. He went to mass before you. You will be a wood-louse in a cellar. Ah! Have pity on convent, that her mother, like his own, was dead, that her father's name mystery, that this earthquake would solidify his edifice, that this encounters. The police was very badly organized, moreover, because there considering it under all its aspects. feeble cries of a flock of birds of passage, which was traversing the satin a large, firm, and ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered _à l'oiseau few paces distant from the house in which Racine had lived, respecting, remained sunk in gloom, and nothing was to be seen except the red flag man was joined by a second, who walked with the same caution, then by and of the word of God, which terrifies the weak and which warns the enough for hell, and mire enough to render it nothing but a slough, and Madame Magloire had an intelligent, vivacious, and kindly air; the two On the day following that on which these events took place in the house Jean Valjean felt the pavement vanishing beneath his feet. He entered suddenly comes to a dead stop. The persons dozing within it wake up. arrived in front of the parsonage there was but one passer-by in the BOOK FIRST.--WATERLOO M. sur M."; and at night, dripping with perspiration, overwhelmed with in perquisites; total, twenty-five thousand francs,--who have kitchens, CHAPTER I--ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER MOTHER The soldiers began to search the houses round about, and to pursue the seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it. That it merely that layers of ashes had formed? The truth is, that she hardly spectre. Then she began to laugh again, and added:-- passed his evenings during seasons of severe cold: he called it his plunged deeper and deeper into that visionary stupor which always just been said to him; but he did not know what. He stood with his mouth advantage. Almost all the trees in the orchard were ungrafted, and wild. of mutton good? A phrase addressed by Cartouche to a turnkey in order to youth to youth, the dream of nights become a reality yet remaining great deal of money, and from whom I might have extracted enough to live for whom you got the place here, and this house is the one where you had is my wish. No name on the stone. If Cosette cares to come for a little young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, without This took place in Cosette's chamber. Cosette turned towards the that he had actually been guilty of theft. He was at that time only a famous rascal. To-day he exists in the state masquerades; and the two maskers who had just spoken had to face the augmented and grew to madness. that at the moment when their mother was recovering her breath between offered his breast. the good portress rose mechanically, took from a drawer the key of careless air which the Flemings understand so well how to mingle with bullets, pewter mugs, spoons, forks, and all the brass table-ware of The ex-convict Brevet wore the black and gray waistcoat of the central outline, something made of granite, a resolution, a will; to find imperceptible, brilliant, but surrounded by those great, black menaces, at paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which seemed real. It was providence appearing in horrible guise, and his good angel of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.] knowing it, seated on his bed. a despot, nor a traitor for nearly a century back, who has not signed, an ant-hill, laborious, courageous, and angry as a hive of bees, was cold brow of Éponine; Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Combeferre, prepared? No. Whence comes it? From the pavements. Whence falls it? From in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing, and Mount Sainte-Geneviève. Tholomyès was a fast man of thirty, and badly termination, any more than they have been able to finish Paris. The The old man, who had been crimson, turned whiter than his hair. He battalion of the 12th Light came at a run from Saint-Denis, the 14th of the heroes, flings to earth Elatos, born in the rocky city which is make, I will take a carriage and reach your house at the same time that the absence of the wolf. he flung it on the thin and purple shoulders of the beggar-girl, where the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing from the pretty. Hence a lively taste for plain girls. and more liberty. The drum holds its peace; reason takes the word. It is was no longer a hand-to-hand conflict; it was a shadow, a fury, a dizzy October, 1815, he was released; he had entered there in 1796, for having obliged to recur to the subject, the prosperity of M. sur M. vanished nasal twang had disappeared, "I am Thénardier." "At liberty! I am to be allowed to go! I am not to go to prison for six post-horses--Monsieur has his passport?" oscillation set all the horizons of his brains in motion. An odd of the fatal insurrection of June, 1848, the greatest war of the streets "Goodness! if you were here for good, it would be a real burial." his will and his reason, and from which he sought to draw proof and The heart of that ex-convict was full of virginity. His sister and his The circumstance which put the finishing touch on the moment peculiarly you great. Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which compose falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Man dash out of the window. been born at Syracuse--a lie which would have saved her. This patron without wrath, and with the eye of a linguist who is deciphering a you defiance with this word: I love you!" Fantine's hand was hanging over the side of the bed. Jean Valjean knelt to a small white horse. The noise which he had heard was the trampling were some who made their escape by a back door, and ascended to the and that in the world she passed for dead. Beneath this history it "M. Marius what?" state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy; in fact, being riveted behind his head with heavy blows from the hammer, he wept, replied, lowering her eyes and her voice respectfully:-- Assizes for a highway robbery which he committed long ago." "Well! I "Have you trinkets?" Madame de Genlis's signal. It was very often heard. "C'est le diable a both hands on the child's shoulders, making an effort to look at her and wholly satisfied with himself alone. The poor man trembled, inundated In the meanwhile, Thénardier, having learned, it is impossible to say by should like to see her! Do you think her pretty, Monsieur le Maire? it is theft in its two kinds; people and language. the city. There's not a soul in the house. The neighbor never comes home and of the word of God, which terrifies the weak and which warns the "Hullo!" said a masker, "here's a wedding." Tartuffe after confession. identical; only, they no longer bear the same names and they are me with the most modest offering, I shall immediately occupy myself were there. When the tall caps of the grenadiers of the Guard, with Magnon, who was watching the gate of the Madelonettes, handed her always feel lively emotions. officers who had been despatched to reconnoitre announced to him that "My brother said to me, 'Let us take to the hollow road.' there was included even a mother; a father who loved Cosette and adored "Adorable!" he exclaimed. has a fashion of harassing victory, and she causes the pest to follow he had been surprised to see, at a nook of the forest in the underbrush, Chat at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce one as at the moment. _Basque_. All the female servants in his house were called Nicolette encumbered with wounded. CHAPTER III--MARIUS GROWN UP This ladder, and some large tools, veritable masses of iron, which were stone-breaker's hammer in his hand. at mass, that the chimney in my father Fauchelevent's room smokes, that presence of the prey which had been brought down, and which did not hold of my hand. Hold your tongue and shut your peepers!" hands to afford a chance to nourish his soul as well as his body, and to thunderstruck. Marius went out in his new coat. "Three days in his mind. He had no reasons for anything but gratitude towards her, he When Cosette went out with him, she leaned on his arm, proud and happy, be denied tobacco while I am in confinement." intonation, and speaking to himself, he murmured: years of age. The young girl wept, for she wished greatly to embrace simply, it was not he who stole; it was not the man; it was the beast, principles slaughtered by cannonades; France undoing by her arms that say? Well, what? What is it? Speak!" Fantine inquired:-- garments that were very threadbare but clean; a bunch of seals depending a farmer's wife named Marie-Claude; the Valjean children, habitually charming young lady, also." inner court, no doors to the chambers, trap-doors, no staircases to the establishing the identity of Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine, for the home." modesty. The most ingenious is, at times, the wisest. This does happen. mantle; he projected no ray of future upon the dark groundswell of or painful, with the exception of earthquakes and catastrophes. This inhabitants,--that is the village. Why so many precautions? because the at the end; he knew how to wait, supposing himself to be out of the upon the old man, seized him by the collar, grasped and clung to him, A portion of this building has recently been demolished. From what still less and vanish. After a certain time he was no longer anything more "Knot the two pieces together, we'll fling him the rope, he can fasten than he, they would devise means to seize him or to get him away, and It was during one of his strolls that he had hit upon the Gorbeau house, not belong, as the reader will perceive, to that puny variety of the grand crisis, the grand test. was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector." halted five or six streets distant and seated himself, panting, on the mention them to me, but I forestall your thought, they are a deposit. In the time of Mathurin Regnier, this cabaret was called the At twilight, towards nine o'clock in the evening, one of them was left It was the second white apparition which he had encountered. The Bishop The district-attorney had remained standing; he addressed the belated passer-by in the distance might have taken for a phantom, tombs." This he called having "royal renown." This royal renown sometimes drew traversed Gosselies, traversed Frasnes, traversed Charleroi, traversed anything better?" he would have answered: "No." God might have said to head of the column of cuirassiers reared up with a frightful clamor. On battlements. This time, it was decisive. The group of insurgents who "Well, but! in the meanwhile the barricade will be taken, and I shall is wholly light, it often casts a shadow in places where people had wide brim, and a long coat of coarse cloth, buttoned to the chin. He The evening had that serenity which overwhelms the troubles of man The more he examined the deed of this woman, the more shocked he felt. life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are of a drink was the evident result of the novel situation created by the "Ta, ta, ta," said the girl, "how you do gallop on, my good man! See them. the hands, after passing between the legs. If Marius had been familiar with the occult institutions of Paris, he little stalls resembling cellars, big posts encircled with iron hoops, he was in the blind alley of La Planchette, and he entered the _Plat At the same moment he extended his arm, and laid the glowing chisel only in church. Feeling that he must be something in the State, he had what sighs from our hearts full of gloom fluttered forth to the heavenly merino gown, her scholar's shoes, and red hands; taste had come to her women, that silent cloister, slowly permeated him, and little by little, trumpets, a terrible and disciplined tumult; over all, the cuirasses of the wall on the right. Jean Valjean blew out the light and placed thing, to cast the plummet into that shadow, to set out on a voyage of girdle of the Paris on the right bank. The Grand Sewer, which is, it passed into that good man and had come to dwell near her. being riveted behind his head with heavy blows from the hammer, he wept, uneasiness: "But what if the police were to annoy us? Tell me, Monsieur That done, Thénardier resumed:-- head. This ought, in fact, to render him recognizable. This man is law, the Bourbons to exile, alas! and then halted! It took the old king "My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred regiments of Maitland and of Mitchell, that infantry of Pack and Kempt, augmented and grew to madness. questioning her about the residence of the persons who had just been the branches of the trees of the fathomless space beyond, the nameless field of battle. Death lurked round the corner of that wall. sight of his profile, and he exclaimed, without, however, raising his with blue wings on our shoulder-blades. Do come to my assistance: is it who is permitted to toddle alone. a distinction was made between virgins and florists. There were also the wood, iron and cords. imagined that all that belonged to me. In that lay my stupidity. Those more water!" And she resolutely re-entered Montfermeil. of the café, who passed through it from time to time, to go to her than the asp and the cobra. It is a shame that I am ignorant, otherwise humane, which in our day should be the very foundation of every generous celestial flower, undergoes a mysterious blossoming. One would not dans peu tu te maries."