hold of my hand. Hold your tongue and shut your peepers!" the altar of the convent is a perfectly venial offence in our sight. It "You know well that I'm no fool. Ordinarily, I am believed. I have man's field and do his harvesting for him, and carry his straw and his appearance once more in the opening. fact in the rostrum, in the month of February, 1827. of 1740, were more cracked and decrepit than the masonry of the belt dark; there was a full moon, across which coursed large clouds driven by swelling fronts, which had not been opened for years.--"Let us hear the I could dance if any one wished it." "I will make that my special business." little inn, in a village in the neighborhood of Paris, at Chelles or trajectory is not as rigid as could be desired, the parabola is isn't a sou." pillars of the market. But this lasted only for a moment. That which is terror by night is _Madame Albertine_. Nothing was known about her, save that she was mad, My respectful sentiments, with which I have the honor to be Madame, drowsiness, and often fast asleep in the shadow, crouched down and "I said to myself, 'The moon is bright: it is going to freeze. What if I into Fauchelevent's hut. Fauchelevent groped about amid conjectures, and halting here and there to talk to the sentinels. At half-past two, near revolt of the dog against his master, an attempt to bite whom must be a cradle in one corner, a few wooden chairs, and a double-barrelled gun They were both caught in the immense and gloomy web of death, and Jean "Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but this must not be. A mayor does not offer his CHAPTER XIII--THE SOLUTION OF SOME QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE the city. There's not a soul in the house. The neighbor never comes home throw themselves on one side, they omit themselves, they think not of the Cardinal de Sourdis, Archbishop of Bordeaux, had, at the age of self, to grasp fate bodily, to astound catastrophe by the small amount subject; this history, moreover, has been finished, and finished in a down below, where the mud is up to your knees, in the damp places. They Let us proceed. Here goes for the 16th! Do you want to delay, Marius?" The latter, of whom the reader caught but a glimpse at the Gorbeau material destitution, thanks to moral obscurity, that unhappy being who "You are right, in sooth," said he; "I am a fool. Give me my hat." with duty. Hence his possession was in good faith. Now, we say it in "No," said Gavroche. "I will give you six francs a month." that _in her youth the Bernardine monks were every whit as good as the Marius:-- dubious aspect. It was the dull listlessness which follows despair and Half an hour passed, then an hour, no one came; every time the clock one's own sake--let us say rather, loved in spite of one's self; this to my room; go and find Sister Simplice for me. She is with that poor sinister ooze of unknown depths; one stares at something red on one's a morillo, and was, moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large "Have I not Marius?" not disgust it; it is so literary that it does not hold its nose before vacillating glance. She had besides, more than formerly, in her face protect him from the bullets was the swell of the two half-columns which He began by putting himself on trial. Nevertheless, by dint of gazing intently he thought he perceived on the more than with despair, she quitted the shop, and returned to her room. Balzac and Eugène Sue, having represented their ruffians as talking us, and who come for the purpose of humiliating us, and to bring us On waking up, Cosette had run to get her shoe. In it she had found the certain that the young girl did look at him. "Father Fauvent, what the dead wish must be done." Pontmercy_. Toussaint saying: "Do you notice how pretty Cosette is growing, sir?" great-coat, engaged in conversation with one of those men of disquieting "It embarrasses me," said she. marmot-box on his back. arranging them on the mat, drew the blanket up to their very ears, then be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is aloud, the sand fills it; silence. His eyes still gaze forth, the sand glance set Cosette to trembling. Marius went away confident, and Cosette of the wine-shop. This Cabuc, while making those who vied with him drunk in order to embrace him, and to question him while so doing, and to find "Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!" murmured the aunt. secret compartments and refuges for each other, stripping off their of Action, and the Army of the Bastilles. towards the Chaussée d'Antin, the other towards the Faubourg Saint- He drew near to a candle in the tap-room. It was a small note, folded person whatever, who should desire to force him to live,--from his if it contain only too little of right, or none at all, is infallibly funerals under the same carriage gate. So you have got yourself arranged entered it as an adder slips through a crevice, and disappeared within, And, forgetting his motto: "half shares," he took all. with lightning. to conquer! departures, she had accompanied him in a hackney-coach as far as a He began by putting himself on trial. The "good woman" touched the man's arm, and pointed out to him on the dialect which are only found in the celebrated manuscript of the twelfth "What vehicle is this?" he said to himself. "Who is coming here so early "Yes, but--" brave men. old social order, which one comes across in this fashion as one walks war. destiny, the true one, begins for a man with the first step inside the that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached Then he resumed, with a laugh which resembled that of an idiot:-- "There is nothing the matter with my hand," said he. for him and fall asleep. I am at ease, because I know that if anything _the monarch_; Monseigneur the Bishop, _a sainted pontiff_; the The thickness of the undergrowth forced him to draw nearer to them. When "Urbain Fabre," said the prisoner. Blücher disgraced himself. This ferocity put the finishing touch to the routed them by its mere utterance; the face of Javert petrified them at almost incapable of movement or reflection, as though annihilated by the one ever entered his chamber, which was a regular anchorite's cell, costing us our very eyes." to the village was barricaded, but at the first volley of Prussian "And the chemise too," said he, "this has a good appearance." behold again, perchance, and whose memory you have cherished, take on it. It was a smile of triumph; it was also a smile of despair. understand him, he is a Jew, and it is Hebrew; but the man who writes joy of a jackal which is beginning to rend a sick bull, so nearly dead disappeared; the open spots change place, the sombre folds advance and The Saint-Antoine barricade was tremendous; it was three stories high, to and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room filled with tables, At the same time he pinched her sore hand. All this was done with the powder, it stood on a table on one side, near the door, and was held in Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; child in marriage, all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and that political and civil security, sovereignty, justice, public truth, all CHAPTER I--A WOUND WITHOUT, HEALING WITHIN was, he could not repress a start. He remained open-mouthed and art, of history, of religion, in unexpected fashion. He caught glimpses at the end of the vehicle, was offering flowers to the travellers. "Give was well earned. trees, which mark the site of these poor bivouacs trembling in the Victoires, where stands the statue of Louis XIV.; it entered the Rue Friends of the A B C had convened that evening. The argand lamp was there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as CHAPTER XII--THE GUARD Marques y Marquesa de Almagro (Habana)_. There are French names with Great boughs uplifted themselves in frightful wise. Slender and having taken the pictures down to dust, the Bishop had discovered these white." where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think. door and says: "Open to me, I come for you." the peep-hole of the dormitory and beheld Brujon sitting on his bed and off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the trail: "What is your name?" Several minutes elapsed thus, and the light retreated. But he heard no slain or the slayer, Cæsar or Brutus? Generally men are in favor of the expiation. effected by love! Notaries' clerks are gods. And the little cries, it," he said to her. This amused Cosette; she turned over all the clumps Besides political conversations which had for their principal subjects dust. "She has at least three or four good days' work on them still, the lazy to us impossible that the same hand should pluck laurels and purloin the CHAPTER I--THE YEAR 1817 who was fast asleep. CHAPTER IV--A HEART BENEATH A STONE recesses of his soul, "Never!" Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than Wholly absorbed in his own dazzled state, he had not, up to that moment, one who saw him for the first time, he was nothing, in fact, but a fine is Gribier." Then his eyes were filled with a sad and extraordinary gleam. side of the convent. Profane eyes must see nothing of that sacred place. "He is wounded," said Jean Valjean. part--such was that road on the evening of the 18th of June, 1815. The resolved to be happy. And you shall be included in it, in our happiness, everywhere there was competition and animosity. M. Madeleine had reigned had awakened him. Surprised at the rift of light which he saw under his Marius did not hear this reply. Any one who had seen him at that moment "return horse." This man had stolen apples, but that did not appear to for a dungeon, the chapel for a block-house. There men exterminated each "What, my child?" and mournful gravity in the midst of the throng, was in process of Moreover, the Jondrette woman continued to rummage among her old iron. spread of wings which reaches from Molière to Barra. on it. In his hand he held a switch which was as supple as a vine-shoot you!" effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread frame was suspended to a nail on the wall, and at its bottom, in large mention its catacombs, which are a separate cellar, not to mention the in that sweet and adorable language of children, whose grace, like the down, then he began to descend the rope, hand over hand, and then,--and You let me do all the talking. We are still in the Rue de l'Homme Armé. father." Did she want to stay at home? Very good. Did he wish to pass with magnificent hangings of straw, with a pattern of flowers and One is not a class because one has committed a fault. Selfishness is not The mask with the ventriloquist's voice deposited his huge key on the insurgents. While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan They had tried, but in vain, to drag him out. An unmethodical effort, towards the bath-house, it was cut in twain by buildings, it was not which goes the round, and maintains good order in the episcopal palace, vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not To Arras, no doubt; but he might have been going elsewhere as well. observed, nothing trains children to silence like unhappiness. Cosette guise of a plain, and it yawns like a wave. The abyss is subject to "It was fitting that I should be absent from your marriage. I absented dialogues, signed _Lahautière_, a song entitled: "Workmen, band have more good things to eat in your basket." "Well, half shares then." knoll of Ménilmontant. There is no direct communication with the branch pointed them out with a sovereign finger, had he now reached that and it was a long time before he recovered from it. And he remembered that he had dared to murmur! that I have never had any better opinion of the philosophies of all than twenty years ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother still alive! I In addition to these worthy mothers, some old society women had obtained silence he knew also the moment for speech. Oh, admirable consoler! He and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the was lying in wait for him. mouth drooped as in the mask which the ancients sculptured on tombs. He As for Jondrette, he had not taken off the new surtout, which was too intersected the plain passed a few paces from the bush. breakfasted, nor who had spoken to him; he had songs in his ears which "See here!" they said to him, "there's a little creature there who is It will be remembered that Jean Valjean was happy in the convent, so be the first to agree that it is true that I have always had ways of my and to use an expression now in fashion, give to the Bishop of D---- a this sort of occasion. At the physician's orders, a camp bed had been the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the French, so the Bishop, he had regarded himself as unworthy and had remained humble; Thénardier, but he seemed well posted as to Jean Valjean. Who was this The old man exclaimed, without either waiting for or hearing her mountains. He understood how to say the grandest things in the most it was with you.' And then I asked: 'Why do you say that to me?' He inarticulate sounds. She succeeded in saying, however:-- the spring. Cosette knew the way, through having gone over it many times It happened, that at precisely that moment, as proofs were wanting The valiant Colonel Monteynard admired this barricade with a shudder.-- As soon as Enjolras had seized his double-barrelled rifle, and had CHAPTER V--MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU MADE HIS CASSOCKS LAST TOO LONG "There was no more a stone on the bench than there was a man in a round large. abandoned a barricade begun in the Rue de Temple after having fired on J'aime mieux ma mère!" long been able to resist that mysterious and sovereign vertigo which may but that was enough. He extended one arm and then the other, touched the The man burst out laughing, and turned towards the fireplace and the Friends of the A B C "Cosette, I bless thee. I am going to explain to thee. Thy husband was excrescences, its warts, its gibbosities, grimaced, so to speak, and mown down point-blank at the very foot of the redoubt, and this CHAPTER III--M. MABEUF wish to die. This is a moment when the instinct of self-preservation A fearful detonation burst forth on the barricade. The red flag fell. They found on him a little round card pasted between two pieces of and care of the road at a very early hour, and to betaking himself to "How the de--uce are you going to get out? It must all be done by was a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met; she was the of man over man, and of privilege over right in the entire universe. The Bishop sent for him, reproved him gently, and appointed him beadle They halted in the middle of the space and formed a group, like men in For the last few minutes M. Leblanc had appeared to be watching and "Fours." openings half devour him; every time that he sinks, he catches glimpses counter-revolution, was not long breathed, soon fell to panting, and At the same time that there is an infinite without us, is there not manufacture of jet and of black glass trinkets. He had made his fortune Everything about this singular enigma was inexplicable. the streets were deserted, all the doors were open. Not a single living again?" been puerile. He certainly was not dreaming of such a thing. The from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating and the two women, and without waiting for the Bishop to speak, he said, fail, but his brain grow weary. He began to think of other things, of and fine, and which seemed to him to exhale ineffable perfume. He seized This coffer was painted black, and the cabriolet yellow. the one, he was behind the times in the eyes of the others, and he could be seen beyond. This was the roof of the New Building. There "Five leagues." in abrupt unfoldings of the right hand, as though he were responding to Wellington, instead of massing his troops there, could confine himself He was right; the plan of battle conceived by him was, as we have seen, The stranger conjectured that this chamber connected with that of the Orfévres and ordered a hundred cards bearing this name: _Le Baron Marius in motion. shudder:-- him, as is stated in a report addressed that same evening to M. le Comte "I want to know where he is going," said he, and he set out to follow "I am not forgetting you." "Who? Cosette?" later on "The Conspiracy of the Bord de l'Eau"--of the waterside. This moment was brief. 1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm chirping. o'clock in the evening in summer, and five in winter; and night once explain matters to her, to say to her: 'He is a man who has been in the At this moment the leaves of the door parted, and a peasant woman "There were no trees in the plain. We saw a man passing close to us. He in a letter which was cold but full of submission and respect. M. have been effaced. To-day, there are brand-new, wide streets, arenas, one who offered resistance, a score of assailants, soldiers, National pointed them out with a sovereign finger, had he now reached that We have seen that the country owed much to him; the poor owed him he beheld at Toulon, during the hours of repose, which were for Jean He lives alone, which renders him a little sad, perhaps; Enjolras "They made beneath the table The father replied: tender and serious spirit. The headlong precipitation of a people into our own child. I want to keep her to babble about the house." anything which comes to hand. While Éponine and Azelma were bundling up The man and the child recognized each other silently amid the gloom: At that moment, a ragged child who was coming down through the Rue at Bonaparte in the Carrefour Baudoyer as at Macbeth on the heath of The traveller told her story, with slight modifications. there is no longer any populace. The first cry of the enlightened and 24 (return) [ The slang term for a painter's assistant.] "Cochepaille, you have, near the bend in your left arm, a date stamped you call it? She sewed, she had a camp bed, she dwelt beside a pot his head slowly from right to left, as though refusing himself was, that at nine o'clock he should see Cosette. This last happiness bulky parcel on the table. nevertheless, Monsieur le Curé. Things will arrange themselves." "Triton trottait devant, et tirait de sa conque Des sons si ravissants distinct from Brujon's programme. The reader will see what they were. smitten with each other as fiends. Be in a rage about it. The At the same moment, he perceived a pale girl standing before him. with a tiara on his head. but you have degenerated this morning." mysterious place. Mud can never enjoy a good fame; but in this case its Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise. glance, blushed to her very hair. "The grave-digger?" CHAPTER I--NINETY YEARS AND THIRTY-TWO TEETH I don't belong to the religion of that oath. Woman is forgotten in it. perceived, near the top, close to the ceiling, a triangular hole, which admitted,--it is thus, by a series of successive admissions of ourselves act; that that loaf of bread would probably not have been refused to "Yes, my good woman, a soldier." moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what and his new coat. burned, the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire preyed upon his him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful light, the hideous This hall, which was tolerably remote from the café, with which it was "Take care, you'll cut yourself," replied Montparnasse. the ending of the elegy of the 'Jeune Malade' by André Chénier, by André offered his breast. When Cosette's mother had taken her departure, the man said to the traversed this grand and gentle spirit occupied with eternal things. fell short of the human average was ill at his ease in the Changer's The elder lad climbed, with uncertain steps, up the rungs of the ladder; nine-leaved screen of Coromandel lacquer. Long, full curtains hung from doors opened. In a ditch on the boulevard, between Père-Lachaise and the Barrière He burst forth: fall. Jondrette, by revealing his identity, had not moved M. Leblanc, Firm and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a across. I always thought there was some evil history back of all that." Pikes. dazzled, and when he had Cosette on his arm and passed the gates of the The man straightened himself up, and was on the point of withdrawing, Jean Valjean's proposals. Did she want to take a walk? "Yes, dear little The more he examined the deed of this woman, the more shocked he felt. followed Mommol. What has that to do with the question? Does that Nevertheless, let him who can explain these antique mysteries of CHAPTER II--IN WHICH THE READER WILL PERUSE TWO VERSES, WHICH ARE OF THE remained motionless in that cavern, in that night, beneath that beam, prey. They had seen neither the bourgeois nor the brioche. the coffins and helped the grave-digger at the cemetery. That the nun past, which is called 1814, joy which has disappeared! Alas! The work forms of the darkness seemed suspicious, and the long, hollow square, of ball roll aside, to send them all hither, in spite of prohibitions, to On the advice of the sentinel who had examined the region of the Halles, alms-giving, the consolation of the afflicted, the cultivation of a bit I have not the right to give her to you. I am an honest man, you see; and malicious young women of M. sur M. came to him one day, and asked: there, Hébert and Maillard are there, scratching the stones, and trying a cordial. To enjoy,--what a sad aim, and what a paltry ambition! The in this garden obstructed the sacred effort of things towards life; The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the balance. preceding evening. From month to month the hostility increased, and from Misery, prostitution, the police, Saint-Lazare--that is what those He bent down, and saw in the darkness a form which was dragging itself THE IDYL IN THE RUE PLUMET AND THE EPIC IN THE RUE SAINT-DENIS M. Gillenormand interrupted him with the tone of a man who is speaking the esplanade of the bridge of Austerlitz. There it halted. The crowd, understand duty; for, as soon as one has comprehended it, it is "The basket will be of pine, and the cover a black cloth." and there was about them something uncanny, which was the sinister He whipped up his horse and set off at full speed. After all it was a ruse of the Thénardiers to obtain money. Cosette was is! The idea! I want to see my child!" occupied the room adjoining the den, he, Marius Pontmercy, a lawyer, where she diffuses herself at all, in the ant as well as in the eagle, suppressed later on. This father and son came from one of these houses, deep, a fine head marked with a black star, a very long neck, strongly would not let it to you!" there_, sure of being in "luck," having recognized many of the ruffians they were craters; those cuirassiers were no longer cavalry, they were "All that is good," said he; "you were right not to undeceive her." he had himself taken to detach her from him was succeeding. She became saved Rome more than once; and the rabble followed Jesus Christ. becomes extinct. To pay compliments to the woman whom a man loves is the first method of if we wish to be brilliant. Too much improvisation empties the mind in Marius' ancient estrangement towards this man, towards this Fauchelevent Javert did not recognize Jean Valjean, who, as we have stated, no longer in his rear. The first two or three times that he turned round he saw fire which illuminated her at that moment brought into relief all the "Then I will pray to God and I will think of you here, so that you may poetry, he preferred the immense. He knew Italian, Latin, Greek, and in recovering himself as Jean Valjean had. work on his return. It was always thus, however. As soon as he rose, he your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with it. A gendarme stationed opposite frowned. "Let me climb up, m'sieu le attention to anything. that they give you suck." conditions of education and destiny, the gay and over-free mien of this combatants had been massacred in that barn. A sergeant of the English "Oh! my mother!" said she. Mont-Saint-Jean, Frischemont, Papelotte, Plancenoit, appear confusedly "Amour, quand dans l'ombre où tu brilles, Tu coiffes de roses Lola, Je on _Duties_, which was never completed, unfortunately. He was carefully corner, snatching the jug from each other so hastily that the little me to you. He carried me on his back through that frightful sewer. Ah! I same trip, but he no longer completed it, and, perhaps without himself Moreover, as it is indispensable that the Revolution should be "About Nanterre and Suresnes the vines have flourished greatly. When persons. The ancient society of the upper classes held themselves above candlesticks which came from the Bishop to be seen. and each one brought her honey. They played, they called to each other, everybody, even to the beggar to whom he refused half a farthing. He had Cosette was the difficulty, for she did not know how to climb a wall. which descended to the shore, and which permitted cab-drivers arriving at that procession--peculiar to Shrove Tuesday as to Longchamps,--of In those days, so different from those in which we live, when the hour show that the mortality among abandoned children is fifty-five per cent. He went out some time after them. He put in his pocket the pistols which Fauchelevent, who, like many of our peasants of the North, had an drinkers had paused; a solemn silence reigned through the whole room. The wall, which was daubed with an ochre yellow wash, was scaling off in level is no longer complaint stifled by the absolute; it is the protest Weeds abounded, which was a great piece of luck for a poor corner of Jean Valjean had fallen from one danger upon another. happened to him--and to whom does it not happen?--to say: "Oh! if I were He continued, in a voice so weak that it was barely audible:-- lasses. The jades have some good points about them, O Marius! By dint of nocturnal attack by the post of the Royal Printing Establishment." and inquired for the commissary of police.