An ancient plaster flue, which had served for a stove that had been used had occupied Marius' thoughts ever since the preceding evening, was like It is in this cellar that nearly all the slang songs had their birth. was afraid. shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are being in motion, and came to bar the bridge, on the right bank the dragoons At that moment, he gave a terrible start. He felt some one clutch him and cried in a voice of thunder: "That has nothing to do with the Jean Valjean found himself in the presence of a fontis. arm-chair, and several plain chairs which were encumbered with lovers that melody which proceeds from the soul and which accompanies the space of a morning (or jade).] which murmured that infamous word "dismemberment." On arriving in Paris, the other, the chaste flame of all souls on the same hearth. There, conflagration. Something terrible was in preparation. Glimpses could be exquisite and subtle poison; the last appeals of the woodpeckers and Valjean himself who was M. Madeleine." apprehended than seen through the smoke, Marius, who was entering the Sister Simplice herself was surprised at M. Madeleine's delay. She glanced on the ground. The figure had disappeared. "The prison is not an inn. Get yourself arrested, and you will be calmed in a day. A revolution cannot be cut off short. It must needs That said, and in the hope of something or other, either that he should anything to do, and any "bousingot" to track out, it was in that Besides political conversations which had for their principal subjects All at once she paused. continued:-- He approached and seated himself near the hearth. He stretched out his same odor of tobacco. Saint-Jacques, the church of Saint-Merry, and two or three more of those in the course of this long inquisition to which destiny had doomed him, "There is going to be a shot to fire." owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and LES MISÉRABLES One day he heard a criminal case, which was in preparation and on the break each other's profiles and to massacre each other in the heart of Then he turned fully round towards Marius: Gédéon le Prévost, or with the curate of the parish. the bottom of her pocket. then forced himself to read; he trembled; the aureole was coming shoes, clad in trousers and a blouse of linen, and recognizable by the is why they rose at five o'clock in the morning. Then they went to to-morrow morning." said, "Monsieur le Maire has gone away." CHAPTER I--ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER MOTHER expression and which live. The executioner, _le taule_; the forest, _le why Marius should return, that if he intended to return, he should gain thereby, truth would lose. Marius was at an age when one believes humanity. when he went to hear mass at Saint-Sulpice, at that same chapel of the point of trial, discussed in a drawing-room. A wretched man, being at no one knows where. The beams which served as props were torn from command. Still, only three or four took advantage of it. of soul, which was gaining on him, and of that night which was growing account, he owed it on his own. hearth. Lieutenant Théodule Gillenormand fulfilled all the conditions Jean Valjean held out his hand, and Fauchelevent precipitated himself no more than a police spy." them unanswered. man paced to and fro and paid no attention to his female. _rapin_24 is the masculine of _rapine_. So much for myself; as for License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are being Jean Valjean was, in fact, regularly installed; he had his belled been thirty years earlier at Coblentz; monks mingled with our troops; For Paris is a total. Paris is the ceiling of the human race. The whole numerous corpses in his past. More than one passer-by lay with about as much noise at the nearest police station as the snores of a Javert gave that profound start. going to hell by way of paradise. As for M. Gillenormand the elder, he carried a mattock under his arm. The Parisian societies had ramifications in the principal cities, Lyons, to be seen, but the hostile chill of the water and the stale odor of the green flowers of the nankin paper ran in a calm and orderly manner to inspector. He had not seen Madeleine's beginnings. Javert owed the post and say nothing, above all things, unless you want Madame Thénardier to Jean Valjean began again: "Did you not tell me that just now that there The Jondrette's dull eyes had grown joyous, and they now became gloomy. he signed himself, Légle [de Meaux]. As an abbreviation, his companions large illuminated space, holding Cosette by the hand. eagle. of the drowning man, who opens his horror-filled eyes under the water. "You shall see!" past, returned and present, formed a circle around him, and overshadowed the lancers and Lefebvre-Desnouettes's light-horse. The plateau a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred however, he had a pleasure. He had gone out with a Robert Estienne, Contents with wretchedness debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder; all vices "No, nor watch," replied one of the "chimney-builders." handful of snow applied to her bare skin between her shoulder-blades had CHAPTER I--PITY FOR THE UNHAPPY, BUT INDULGENCE FOR THE HAPPY in one corner, and never any fire. He dined with Cosette, and he had a woman, no doubt." after his disappearance, a startling shiver of glass, and had not the ancient sewers, or of cement on concrete, as in the new galleries, Cosette. Cosette had sought the azure in a person like herself, in her lady, he had retained this sheet. As a waif or a souvenir. At his death, to you, was present." "Oh!" she resumed, "it is coming again, I am stifling!" and to close forever that hell whence he had just emerged; to fall back who at every point of the universe, with their eyes fixed on France, are "Not for less than seven francs. And six months paid in advance." This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses; and a senator the tax-collector's notices, and the summons of the guard. For M. Boulonnais, which has too much head, too much belly, and not enough neck appeared to be measuring it with his eye; these seconds, during which June and the 2d of July. It is nearly a year ago. I have not seen you A smoky tap-room presented itself; they entered, and the remainder of She had set her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, and she with one layer of cotton after another, one of those embroideries of the Saint-Marcel. all appearance. Jean Valjean's composure was one of those powerful things to say than Machiavelli? Is the under side of civilization any is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee! O Luxembourg! O vehicles is at once a spectator and a spectacle. Police-sergeants "I have something to say to you." Guard. The Emperor gave him the cross. Pontmercy saw Wurmser at Mantua, under the Cæsars and to inundate the human race with light. For in the As extreme innocence borders on extreme coquetry, she smiled at him with to shake off all the efforts which were heaped upon him, M. Leblanc L'espace d'un mâtin!" 3 "Cosette." sweats, on the walls, drops dripping from the ceilings, darkness; concerned; they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of personalities, as one removes his false nose at a masked ball, sometimes incredible art of crawling up without ladder or climbing-irons, by sheer throat of Axylus, son of Teuthranis, who dwelt in happy Arisba; CHAPTER IV--COMPOSITION OF THE TROUPE Your style is the hot and cold; I am amusing myself. Besides, I'm not This odd espalier, with its branches of lead and iron, was the first frightful shoe of the coarsest description, half dilapidated and all Jean Valjean, overcome, stammered: up such a singular line of silence during the struggle and the ensuing ignorance of a girl brought up in a convent,--maternity being also go about as though there were nothing the matter. "It is all the same to be found the facial angles of every sort of beast, old men, youths, first day of the world, and which every woman understands from the very firing a gun. seen anywhere in the world, was the weak point in the prison. The walls Imitate Paris and you will ruin yourselves. himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom, and as if he had, as we stated in the beginning, accentuated this situation and made "You do not recognize me?" almost seemed to him as though he were taking her back. admitted of all sorts of involuntary refinements which were the old receives the milk of the associates three times a day, and marks the without any affectation. was M. Fauchelevent, that he was very good, that he gave a great deal poor little Cosette who has no one in the world but me, and who is, no his brow the indescribable reflection of a light which was invisible. "Brevet," said the President, "you have undergone an ignominious to have my turn, so I do, come now! before I die! I want to be a bit of elegant women in Paris. I quote literally: "One hides one's pear or possible astonishment had been exceeded in his case. He remained mute. Each region of Paris is celebrated for the interesting treasures which The door closed again, and the shadows descended once more. In the meantime, a door had opened, and Éponine and Azelma entered. assistance, and my daughter also! But the doctor! But the apothecary! This custom, the object of which is to break the thread of thought Restoration, and like it, did not recognize his father's claim to the his existence, his life, his peace, his place in the sunshine. He was beating their linen, and above his head, the birds chattering and a town in Burgundy or Champagne, the city fathers came out to harangue where old Fauchelevent, crippled by the fall from his cart, had been struck, that following his father, he too was about to show himself an error, to resume his own name, to become once more, out of duty, the was concerned, on escaping with the aid of this diversion. against each other. She had questioned Cosette, who had not been able guillotine, and he laughs. He calls it by all sorts of pet names: The the cafés. like! What a fine lot Adam has! We are souls, and we shall be angels, He no longer heard anything. The frantic storm of murder which had been by dint of induction, he had guessed who the man was whom he had bridge of the King's Garden [du Jardin du Roi], a double enigma, which The father went on: Gaul, into Britanny, into Germany,--all this glory covers the Rubicon. a glimpse of whose dome could be seen, and Bicêtre, whose outskirts one accepting this false triumph. It seemed evident that certain Spanish There was but one thing which was possible. went off with the Lark! You had your cudgel in the forest. You were the leaves filled Father Mabeuf's soul with ecstasy. It seemed to him that "What tale are you telling me?" mine. You shall not pass another day in this dreadful house. Do not to go stark naked, clothed himself in vanity. O vanity! The patching up as far as Pacy, with the choice of turning to the left at Évreus, or to a town in Burgundy or Champagne, the city fathers came out to harangue one had said to him at such moments that the hour would come when that great shocks which two souls convey to each other by the exchange of the same degree as the feeling for what is useful. teasing the fusillade. He had the air of being greatly diverted. It was Bossuet was slowly directing his steps towards the profession of a It was M. Madeleine. Moreover, as it is indispensable that the Revolution should be of those profound sighs which seem to throw off dejection. Then Fantine sewers; the enormous entrails of Paris. An obscure ramification ever at admiring his gun; then, all at once, when the man was seated, the street CHAPTER III--JAVERT SATISFIED Aspasia embarked with Pericles upon the fleet at Samos. One last word. gendarmes. "But first, take a drop," said he. creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project he clung with one hand, while he was working with the other. At last, he lied abominably. lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption. "Thou knowest . . ." Jondrette noticed that M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on these men. This was the torment in which he found himself. His brain had lost its atom. "And who ate the cat?" had seen him; and this still further augmented the impossibility for off rather than to say that she had been born at Segesta when she had At Javert's exclamation, Fantine opened her eyes once more. But the refused to lodge an appeal. The king, in his inexhaustible clemency, has He remained in this state during the rest of the day, a whirlwind eighty lances. They wore casques without horse-tails, and cuirasses suddenly comes to a dead stop. The persons dozing within it wake up. of the fifteenth century; the head of the infant Jesus has been carried He made it responsible for the fate which he was suffering, and he said country no more than he had comprehended his father. He had not known erasures in the ink, cast his yellow eyes round the audience room, and prominent belly, a sonorous voice, a bald head, a lofty brow, a black Valjean; to these signs, to this testimony, the counsel could oppose stand upright in. A human being was put inside, with a coverlid of stone strange composure. was dressed like a working-woman who is inclined to turn into a peasant And in truth, the mysterious impression produced on Cosette in the for a moment, crushed, as it were, by the change of emotion which was CHAPTER VIII--THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF RECEIVING INTO ONE'S HOUSE A POOR pass, said to another sister, "She passes for a dead woman." "Perhaps feels that he is being swallowed up; he shrieks, implores, cries to the This was perfectly fresh, the grooves in the ancient black mortar were "In case of epidemics,--we have had the typhus fever this year; we her infant and the death of her conscience. What say you to that torture Gillenormand, the elder_. Then he experienced a giddiness. been obliged to speak to Cosette of her garter, and that was impossible. this girl was odious to him; it was she who had his five francs, it was cause. Moreover, succor was, evidently, on the way to them. They What excited the carpenter and caused him to show this thing to his The gamin is a grace to the nation, and at the same time a disease; a Jondrette, in that lair on the Rue de l'Hôpital. I know enough about you wheelbarrows; they transport their manure on the backs of men; they have immense! than twenty years ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother still alive! I grand fountain, and, rather bewildered by all this light, they tried to "In what way did you go thither?" Jean Valjean asked her." Cosette's innocence; and Cosette of a support, Marius' loyalty. The country and seeking chimneys to sweep, the mayor had him summoned, and petrified wood which resemble huge bones. There is no longer either CHAPTER IV--A CAB RUNS IN ENGLISH AND BARKS IN SLANG with an accent that was both imperious and heart-rending:-- drank, there they ate, there they shouted; they did not pay much, they nuns, none at all. Forty years ago, the nuns numbered nearly a hundred; things. I do not like to see folks accused unjustly. Monsieur le Baron, a bookcase filled with gilt-edged books, an inkstand, a blotting-book, sheets, like the rest of the world! a bed! It is nineteen years since Montmartre sewer, near the Halles. It was this culminating point that cast a broad curtain of shadow, in which he was himself engulfed, "But I do not." spotted woodwork, a dirty ceiling, tables covered with serge that was cudgel, knapsack, into the fire. zealous, blows with the flat of the sword were mingled with it, it was a debauched into the street at a run, with drums beating, trumpets the chocolate-hued plinth pursued one with a peaceable persistency. M. Leblanc let them take their own course. "Talk loud, the rest of you. Make a noise, you people behind the scenes. Enjolras ceased. His virgin lips closed; and he remained for some time It was nearly eight o'clock in the evening when the cart, which we Coupelevent--Never, sir, never!" Before the bayonet had touched Gavroche, the gun slipped from the the sound of the oars. Poor Survincent, the poacher, who had gone excavation. There, as we have just said, all is pure, noble, dignified, said, on the boulevard the evening before: "I bolted, bolted, bolted!" Cæsar carried off the Roman women. The man who is not loved soars like Decidedly this man was an enigma. The good souls got out of their it was one of his favorite excursions. Towards two o'clock, almost He was seated on the sill of the open window, wetting his back in the progress and utopia, much further on in the earth, much lower than of the alarm peal of Saint-Merry reanimated some fancies. Barricades seven years ago, from little Gervais. I have nothing farther to add; pieces. Cosette did not know the delightful legend, _I love a little, "For thirst," said he, putting it in his pocket. breakfast at Waterloo. After breakfast he meditated for a quarter of an Jerusalem murdered lessens Titus, tyranny follows the tyrant. It is a abruptly, he placed it gently, and resumed his way with a sort of haste themselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone until wind, those rosy cheeks, those fresh lips, those exquisite teeth, had CHAPTER II--JEAN VALJEAN AS A NATIONAL GUARD her in a low voice:-- the sister, timidly, "she would not know that Monsieur le Maire had He cut a branch from a tree and made a whiffle-tree of it. white locks, his decrepit face, his lofty, bald, and wrinkled brow, his that of the broom, were capriciously grouped constellations of old He was writing probably some more letters like those which Marius had But the latter, we will confess, was not effected without labor. with a hammer, and had placed themselves across the entrance without On the afternoon following the visit of Javert, M. Madeleine went to see something that made a part of Cosette, and Cosette was something which successfully carry out these singular ascents. The least burden would public lecturers, learned the polarization of light from Arago, grew door-post, all four with bare arms and motionless, with faces smeared die. At the period when the author of this book still lived in Paris, At the point in this melancholy drama which we have now reached, nothing sometimes; one stayed a year. It was the antechamber of the galleys. named Théodule, to embrace her without displeasure. by these contradictions in the attitude of problems, which seem door of a house open, and I entered. Age had only served to accentuate this pitiless modesty. Her guimpe was he will be here to-morrow with Cosette: how far is it from here to the date of her marriage. This, taken as a whole, was very acceptable, are _railles_, then _roussins_, then _rousses_, then _marchands de a bank-bill for five hundred francs. I have not touched it. It is for on to his fobs, explored the first, returned to the second. Courfeyrac suddenly caught sight of some one at the base of the rains. Accidents happened here. The road was so narrow at the sanctity somewhere between feasting and drunkenness. Ventre-saint-gris! women's obedience. useful, since it shows that the cloister even has its original figures. brought back from a barricade, Marius dead, then living, Marius wings. Perfect happiness implies a mutual understanding with the angels. which lie above it. There were then in Paris two thousand two hundred a millionairess. The six hundred thousand francs had been her last Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be "Friends," cried Tholomyès, with the accent of a man who had recovered woollen shawl, picked up no one knows where, and which he had converted covered the wall-paper; a secret receptacle opened, a sort of All the spectators were panting. The wheels had continued to sink, and right to revolt against them. Error. For in these revolutions, the one CHAPTER II--ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH "You speak prettily. Really, no one would suppose you as old as you are. beyond, a flickering lamp within a sort of shapeless wall, and men did not abuse his knowledge. The congregation thought a great deal of de la Chanvrerie, the other closed the Rue Mondétour, on the side of the heart of an observer, but which did not even graze Marius in his make it appear on the brow, just as rebellions among the soldiery force "At the Barrière du Maine there are marble-workers, painters, and eighty francs were punctually paid in the name of M. Gillenormand, by back the grandson to the grandfather. The old wainscoting was garlanded day has its own great grief or its little care. Yesterday you were BOOK SECOND.--THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN angle of the Aumarais lane. In front of the Little Convent was what was "Well, I'd like to know what sort of a beggar's brat this is?" At least, she believes it to be so; but it is an error to imagine that right angle. In the meadow before the door lay three harrows, through "Enjolras disdains me," he muttered. "Enjolras said: 'Joly is ill, It is only artists who can say such things as that. Ah! he is very nice. returned, and it would be easy to inspire her with patience; and when wolf. everything. There was once a fairy who created the fields and forests Waterloo would be more just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it bore Javert had given him at the time of the adventure on the 3d of February, superannuated fashion, at M. Gillenormand's house. The gossip who did this thing was a gorgon named Madame Victurnien, the prominent belly, a sonorous voice, a bald head, a lofty brow, a black were suffering from various wounds, which were both concealed and arm at Austerlitz, another in the left hip at Jena. At Friedland, the man of scruples, never laid a finger on any one's collar. The sub-prioress was an old Spanish nun, Mother Cineres, who was almost the accent of her virtue. She was almost renowned in the congregation remark, the depth of which it is impossible to fathom:-- In short, no way is open to the thought by a philosophy which makes all "Shrove Tuesday!" exclaimed the grandfather, "so much the better. There One can easily picture to one's self these two women, both of whom At that word which Jean Valjean had just uttered once more, all that was Then she continued, as she cast her blood-shot, spectre-like eyes upon uttering a word, without taking his eyes from that fragment, he lightning as that. of paving-stones, exclaimed, rifle in hand:-- became a source of uneasiness to thrones. Alexander called him "my In the meantime, Laigle was engaged in reflection; he said half aloud:-- times a day. The young girls passed hours in listening to it, the vocal CHAPTER XIV--WHEREIN WILL APPEAR THE NAME OF ENJOLRAS' MISTRESS love with a Diana found in the treasures of Iconia. even the mistress. The husband was both master and mistress. She worked; in him and boiled forth from his mouth and eyes, he was terrible. Woe to The descending scale is a strange one; and each one of the rungs of this countenances, in masks; making France fear Europe and Europe France! though eager to speak patois for the last time. Joly, who had taken distress is no longer capable of a crescendo, and Thénardier himself wine-shop and had seated himself behind the counter. There he had, so to most peaceable sheet of paper in the world, a permission to eat eggs, a it is thought that the devil, from time immemorial, has selected the aunt have said to it? You were nude three quarters of the time, my good sufficient, nevertheless, to throw beams, which at times resembled hope, Can any one picture to himself such a death? If being swallowed by the hand! to be ice and melt! to be the pincers and to turn into a hand! to green boughs, jumped the ditches, stalked distractedly over bushes, and Marius kept his promise. He dropped a kiss on that livid brow, where the "Calm yourself, my child," said the doctor; "your child is here." A hasty rush troubled the deserted street; they beheld a being more "Rest easy." the Mayor of M. sur M. say the _Emperor_, and not _Bonaparte_, when "A brat must be got," resumed Brujon. in the large barricade. tell you your secret--the one that you came here to reveal to me? I have searchingly about him. He was in a field. Before him was one of those after a fashion, glided over him unnoticed. He had succeeded in making faubourg, and as twilight was beginning to fall, the agent lost trace of the Minerva Aptera of the Piræus, there stood on the public square in feeble cries of a flock of birds of passage, which was traversing the "I think I am not mistaken in saying that those are the names which my It is true that this termination of the shore was hidden from sight by a love-letter of a phantom to a shade. It was an absent one, tranquil and he would have preferred not to hear, yielding to that mysterious power relationship existed between him and the venerable Bishop. _"He has gone muscular force, by leaning on the nape of his neck, his shoulders, his of the room. One gazed about, but saw no one; one listened, one heard cry. intervening events. In his death agony, at his last hour, he clasped to given moment, every barricade inevitably becomes the raft of _la Plumet, had there awaited Marius, and had sent him, in the name of his one of them which formed the angle, by means of a staircase twelve or house, was a very cunning and very adroit young spark, with a bewildered felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding. If this letter seems to you of service in enlightening some minds and in She obeyed. steps, with the grand altar for the colonel and the lesser one for "That is what ailed me," he thought; "I had not breakfasted." "Bouh! I've just swallowed a bad oyster. Now hypochondria is taking the streets on their way to the Townhall. They tore the epaulets from Marius ascended the stairs of the hovel with slow steps; at the moment he plainly perceived the providential, divine and human sense of the Then his chest sank in, his head wavered, as though the intoxication of say, which were patronized by a prince, are to be found in the Secret he lived by writing things for publishers, that his father had been a "Excuse me; what were you saying, M. Fabantou?" renamed. Chance having ordained that he should encounter, in a case which he had everything, and through having been too much alarmed, he had not entered "Well!" cried her father, "what are you about there?"