Who is this good man who is staring at me?


Sire, you are looking at a good man, and I at a great man. Each of us can profit by it.


Monsieur the director of the hospital, how many sick people have you at the present moment?


Twenty-six, Monseigneur.


That was the number which I counted,


The beds, are very much crowded against each other.


That is what I observed.


The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the air can be changed in them.


So it seems to me.


And then, when there is a ray of sun, the garden is very small for the convalescents.


That was what I said to myself.


In case of epidemics,—we have had the typhus fever this year; we had the sweating sickness two years ago, and a hundred patients at times,—we know not what to do.


That is the thought which occurred to me.


What would you have, Monseigneur? One must resign one’s self.


Monsieur, how many beds do you think this hall alone would hold?


Monseigneur’s dining-room?


It would hold full twenty beds. Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tell you something. There is evidently a mistake here. There are thirty-six of you, in five or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we have room for sixty. There is some mistake, I tell you; you have my house, and I have yours. Give me back my house; you are at home here.


And still I am quite cramped with it all!


I should think so! Monseigneur has not even claimed the allowance which the department owes him for the expense of his carriage in town, and for his journeys about the diocese. It was customary for bishops in former days.


Hold! you are quite right, Madame Magloire.


Expenses of carriage? What can be done with it in a town of less than four thousand inhabitants? Expenses of journeys? What is the use of these trips, in the first place? Next, how can the posting be accomplished in these mountainous parts? There are no roads. No one travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridge between Durance and Château-Arnoux can barely support ox-teams. These priests are all thus, greedy and avaricious. This man played the good priest when he first came. Now he does like the rest; he must have a carriage and a posting-chaise, he must have luxuries, like the bishops of the olden days. Oh, all this priesthood! Things will not go well, M. le Comte, until the Emperor has freed us from these black-capped rascals. Down with the Pope! For my part, I am for Cæsar alone.


Good. Monseigneur began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself, after all. He has regulated all his charities. Now here are three thousand francs for us! At last!


I like that name. Bienvenu makes up for the Monseigneur.


Monsieur the Mayor, and Messieurs Citizens, I perceive that I shock you. You think it very arrogant in a poor priest to ride an animal which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done so from necessity, I assure you, and not from vanity. Look at the people of Briançon! They have conferred on the poor, on widows and orphans, the right to have their meadows mown three days in advance of every one else. They rebuild their houses for them gratuitously when they are ruined. Therefore it is a country which is blessed by God. For a whole century, there has not been a single murderer among them. Look at the people of Embrun! If, at the harvest season, the father of a family has his son away on service in the army, and his daughters at service in the town, and if he is ill and incapacitated, the curé recommends him to the prayers of the congregation; and on Sunday, after the mass, all the inhabitants of the village—men, women, and children—go to the poor man’s field and do his harvesting for him, and carry his straw and his grain to his granary. Look at the mountaineers of Devolny, a country so wild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years. Well, when the father of a family dies, the boys go off to seek their fortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may find husbands. Look at those good peasants in the valley of Queyras! There are three thousand souls of them. Mon Dieu! it is like a little republic. Neither judge nor bailiff is known there. The mayor does everything. He allots the imposts, taxes each person conscientiously, judges quarrels for nothing, divides inheritances without charge, pronounces sentences gratuitously; and he is obeyed, because he is a just man among simple men. Do you know how they manage? Since a little country of a dozen or fifteen hearths cannot always support a teacher, they have schoolmasters who are paid by the whole valley, who make the round of the villages, spending a week in this one, ten days in that, and instruct them. These teachers go to the fairs. I have seen them there. They are to be recognized by the quill pens which they wear in the cord of their hat. Those who teach reading only have one pen; those who teach reading and reckoning have two pens; those who teach reading, reckoning, and Latin have three pens. But what a disgrace to be ignorant! Do like the people of Queyras!


Madame Magloire, fetch me a chair. My greatness does not reach as far as that shelf.


the expectations


Mon Dieu, cousin! What are you thinking about?


I am thinking, of a singular remark, which is to be found, I believe, in St. Augustine,—‘Place your hopes in the man from whom you do not inherit.’ What a stout back Death has! What a strange burden of titles is cheerfully imposed on him, and how much wit must men have, in order thus to press the tomb into the service of vanity!


There is M. Géborand purchasing paradise for a sou. You must give me something, M. le Marquis.


I have poor people of my own, Monseigneur.


Give them to me. My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred and twenty thousand peasants’ dwellings in France which have but three openings; eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand hovels which have but two openings, the door and one window; and three hundred and forty-six thousand cabins besides which have but one opening, the door. And this arises from a thing which is called the tax on doors and windows. Just put poor families, old women and little children, in those buildings, and behold the fevers and maladies which result! Alas! God gives air to men; the law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God. In the department of the Isère, in the Var, in the two departments of the Alpes, the Hautes, and the Basses, the peasants have not even wheelbarrows; they transport their manure on the backs of men; they have no candles, and they burn resinous sticks, and bits of rope dipped in pitch. That is the state of affairs throughout the whole of the hilly country of Dauphiné. They make bread for six months at one time; they bake it with dried cow-dung. In the winter they break this bread up with an axe, and they soak it for twenty-four hours, in order to render it eatable. My brethren, have pity! behold the suffering on all sides of you! En bé! moussu, sés sagé? Onté anaras passa? Puerte un bouen moutu embe un bouen fromage grase. Examine the road over which the fault has passed. Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, check it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in prayer. To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, fall, sin if you will, but be upright. The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream of the angel. All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation. Oh! oh! to all appearance, this is a great crime which all the world commits. These are hypocrisies which have taken fright, and are in haste to make protest and to put themselves under shelter. The faults of women, of children, of the feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise. Teach those who are ignorant as many things as possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is full of shadow; sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow.


Where are this man and woman to be tried?


At the Court of Assizes.


And where will the advocate of the crown be tried?


That is no affair of mine. I have nothing to do with that unpleasant task, and with that mountebank: I, too, am ill; and besides, it is not my place.


Monsieur le Curé is right: it is not his place; it is mine.


God raises from the dead him whom man slays; he whom his brothers have rejected finds his Father once more. Pray, believe, enter into life: the Father is there. his palace I have just officiated pontifically.


It is affectation.


I did not think that it was so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?


Have a care of the manner in which you turn towards the dead. Think not of that which perishes. Gaze steadily. You will perceive the living light of your well-beloved dead in the depths of heaven.


The mind is a garden,


Oh, you who are! Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names.


I am paying my tithes,


The most beautiful of altars, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thanking God.


How delightful that is!


That takes nothing from the poor. I find it difficult to renounce eating from silver dishes.


Monseigneur, you who turn everything to account, have, nevertheless, one useless plot. It would be better to grow salads there than bouquets.


Madame Magloire, you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the useful. More so, perhaps.


Have bolts put on your rooms, if that will please you. This is the shade of difference: the door of the physician should never be shut, the door of the priest should always be open. Am not I a physician like them? I also have my patients, and then, too, I have some whom I call my unfortunates. Do not inquire the name of him who asks a shelter of you. The very man who is embarrassed by his name is the one who needs shelter.


Nisi Dominus custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant qui custodiunt eam,” Unless the Lord guard the house, in vain do they watch who guard it. There is a bravery of the priest as well as the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,—only, ours must be tranquil.


Therefore. I intend to go without escort.


You do not really mean that, Monseigneur!


I do mean it so thoroughly that I absolutely refuse any gendarmes, and shall set out in an hour.


Set out?


Set out.


Alone?


Alone.


Monseigneur, you will not do that!


There exists yonder in the mountains, a tiny community no bigger than that, which I have not seen for three years. They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own one goat out of every thirty that they tend. They make very pretty woollen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on little flutes with six holes. They need to be told of the good God now and then. What would they say to a bishop who was afraid? What would they say if I did not go?


But the brigands, Monseigneur?


Hold. I must think of that. You are right. I may meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God.


But, Monseigneur, there is a band of them! A flock of wolves!


Monsieur le maire, it may be that it is of this very flock of wolves that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd. Who knows the ways of Providence?


They will rob you, Monseigneur.


I have nothing.


They will kill you.


An old goodman of a priest, who passes along mumbling his prayers? Bah! To what purpose?


Oh, mon Dieu! what if you should meet them!


I should beg alms of them for my poor.


Do not go, Monseigneur. In the name of Heaven! You are risking your life!


Monsieur le maire, is that really all? I am not in the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls.


Bah! Let us announce our Te Deum from the pulpit, nevertheless, Monsieur le Curé. Things will arrange themselves.


From Cravatte to Monseigneur Bienvenu. Did not I say that things would come right of themselves? To him who contents himself with the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop.


Monseigneur. God—or the Devil.


God! Well! was I in the right? The poor priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he returns from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith in God; I have brought back the treasure of a cathedral. Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which threatens our soul. Sister, never a precaution on the part of the priest, against his fellow-man. That which his fellow does, God permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer, when we think that a danger is approaching us. Let us pray, not for ourselves, but that our brother may not fall into sin on our account.


The question is, to decide whether this should be turned over to the cathedral or to the hospital.


Egad, Bishop, let’s have a discussion. It is hard for a senator and a bishop to look at each other without winking. We are two augurs. I am going to make a confession to you. I have a philosophy of my own.


And you are right. As one makes one’s philosophy, so one lies on it. You are on the bed of purple, senator.


Let us be good fellows.


Good devils even,


I declare to you, that the Marquis d’Argens, Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no rascals. I have all the philosophers in my library gilded on the edges.


Like yourself, Count,


I hate Diderot; he is an ideologist, a declaimer, and a revolutionist, a believer in God at bottom, and more bigoted than Voltaire. Voltaire made sport of Needham, and he was wrong, for Needham’s eels prove that God is useless. A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of flour paste supplies the fiat lux. Suppose the drop to be larger and the spoonful bigger; you have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the Eternal Father? The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, Bishop. It is good for nothing but to produce shallow people, whose reasoning is hollow. Down with that great All, which torments me! Hurrah for Zero which leaves me in peace! Between you and me, and in order to empty my sack, and make confession to my pastor, as it behooves me to do, I will admit to you that I have good sense. I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. ’Tis the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice; to what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another wolf. Let us stick to nature, then. We are at the top; let us have a superior philosophy. What is the advantage of being at the top, if one sees no further than the end of other people’s noses? Let us live merrily. Life is all. That man has another future elsewhere, on high, below, anywhere, I don’t believe; not one single word of it. Ah! sacrifice and renunciation are recommended to me; I must take heed to everything I do; I must cudgel my brains over good and evil, over the just and the unjust, over the fas and the nefas. Why? Because I shall have to render an account of my actions. When? After death. What a fine dream! After my death it will be a very clever person who can catch me. Have a handful of dust seized by a shadow-hand, if you can. Let us tell the truth, we who are initiated, and who have raised the veil of Isis: there is no such thing as either good or evil; there is vegetation. Let us seek the real. Let us get to the bottom of it. Let us go into it thoroughly. What the deuce! let us go to the bottom of it! We must scent out the truth; dig in the earth for it, and seize it. Then it gives you exquisite joys. Then you grow strong, and you laugh. I am square on the bottom, I am. Immortality, Bishop, is a chance, a waiting for dead men’s shoes. Ah! what a charming promise! trust to it, if you like! What a fine lot Adam has! We are souls, and we shall be angels, with blue wings on our shoulder-blades. Do come to my assistance: is it not Tertullian who says that the blessed shall travel from star to star? Very well. We shall be the grasshoppers of the stars. And then, besides, we shall see God. Ta, ta, ta! What twaddle all these paradises are! God is a nonsensical monster. I would not say that in the Moniteur, egad! but I may whisper it among friends. Inter pocula. To sacrifice the world to paradise is to let slip the prey for the shadow. Be the dupe of the infinite! I’m not such a fool. I am a nought. I call myself Monsieur le Comte Nought, senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I exist after death? No. What am I? A little dust collected in an organism. What am I to do on this earth? The choice rests with me: suffer or enjoy. Whither will suffering lead me? To nothingness; but I shall have suffered. Whither will enjoyment lead me? To nothingness; but I shall have enjoyed myself. My choice is made. One must eat or be eaten. I shall eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass. Such is my wisdom. After which, go whither I push thee, the grave-digger is there; the Pantheon for some of us: all falls into the great hole. End. Finis. Total liquidation. This is the vanishing-point. Death is death, believe me. I laugh at the idea of there being any one who has anything to tell me on that subject. Fables of nurses; bugaboo for children; Jehovah for men. No; our to-morrow is the night. Beyond the tomb there is nothing but equal nothingness. You have been Sardanapalus, you have been Vincent de Paul—it makes no difference. That is the truth. Then live your life, above all things. Make use of your I while you have it. In truth, Bishop, I tell you that I have a philosophy of my own, and I have my philosophers. I don’t let myself be taken in with that nonsense. Of course, there must be something for those who are down,—for the barefooted beggars, knife-grinders, and miserable wretches. Legends, chimæras, the soul, immortality, paradise, the stars, are provided for them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on their dry bread. He who has nothing else has the good God. That is the least he can have. I oppose no objection to that; but I reserve Monsieur Naigeon for myself. The good God is good for the populace.


That’s talking! What an excellent and really marvellous thing is this materialism! Not every one who wants it can have it. Ah! when one does have it, one is no longer a dupe, one does not stupidly allow one’s self to be exiled like Cato, nor stoned like Stephen, nor burned alive like Jeanne d’Arc. Those who have succeeded in procuring this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling themselves irresponsible, and of thinking that they can devour everything without uneasiness,—places, sinecures, dignities, power, whether well or ill acquired, lucrative recantations, useful treacheries, savory capitulations of conscience,—and that they shall enter the tomb with their digestion accomplished. How agreeable that is! I do not say that with reference to you, senator. Nevertheless, it is impossible for me to refrain from congratulating you. You great lords have, so you say, a philosophy of your own, and for yourselves, which is exquisite, refined, accessible to the rich alone, good for all sauces, and which seasons the voluptuousness of life admirably. This philosophy has been extracted from the depths, and unearthed by special seekers. But you are good-natured princes, and you do not think it a bad thing that belief in the good God should constitute the philosophy of the people, very much as the goose stuffed with chestnuts is the truffled turkey of the poor.


MY GOOD MADAM: Not a day passes without our speaking of you. It is our established custom; but there is another reason besides. Just imagine, while washing and dusting the ceilings and walls, Madam Magloire has made some discoveries; now our two chambers hung with antique paper whitewashed over, would not discredit a château in the style of yours. Madam Magloire has pulled off all the paper. There were things beneath. My drawing-room, which contains no furniture, and which we use for spreading out the linen after washing, is fifteen feet in height, eighteen square, with a ceiling which was formerly painted and gilded, and with beams, as in yours. This was covered with a cloth while this was the hospital. And the woodwork was of the era of our grandmothers. But my room is the one you ought to see. Madam Magloire has discovered, under at least ten thicknesses of paper pasted on top, some paintings, which without being good are very tolerable. The subject is Telemachus being knighted by Minerva in some gardens, the name of which escapes me. In short, where the Roman ladies repaired on one single night. What shall I say to you? I have Romans, and Roman ladies , and the whole train. Madam Magloire has cleaned it all off; this summer she is going to have some small injuries repaired, and the whole revarnished, and my chamber will be a regular museum. She has also found in a corner of the attic two wooden pier-tables of ancient fashion. They asked us two crowns of six francs each to regild them, but it is much better to give the money to the poor; and they are very ugly besides, and I should much prefer a round table of mahogany.


I am always very happy. My brother is so good. He gives all he has to the poor and sick. We are very much cramped. The country is trying in the winter, and we really must do something for those who are in need. We are almost comfortably lighted and warmed. You see that these are great treats. My brother has ways of his own. When he talks, he says that a bishop ought to be so. Just imagine! the door of our house is never fastened. Whoever chooses to enter finds himself at once in my brother’s room. He fears nothing, even at night. That is his sort of bravery, he says. He does not wish me or Madame Magloire feel any fear for him. He exposes himself to all sorts of dangers, and he does not like to have us even seem to notice it. One must know how to understand him. He goes out in the rain, he walks in the water, he travels in winter. He fears neither suspicious roads nor dangerous encounters, nor night.


Last year he went quite alone into a country of robbers. He would not take us. He was absent for a fortnight. On his return nothing had happened to him; he was thought to be dead, but was perfectly well, and said, “This is the way I have been robbed!” And then he opened a trunk full of jewels, all the jewels of the cathedral of Embrun, which the thieves had given him.


When he returned on that occasion, I could not refrain from scolding him a little, taking care, however, not to speak except when the carriage was making a noise, so that no one might hear me. At first I used to say to myself, “There are no dangers which will stop him; he is terrible.” Now I have ended by getting used to it. I make a sign to Madam Magloire that she is not to oppose him. He risks himself as he sees fit. I carry off Madam Magloire, I enter my chamber, I pray for him and fall asleep. I am at ease, because I know that if anything were to happen to him, it would be the end of me. I should go to the good God with my brother and my bishop. It has cost Madam Magloire more trouble than it did me to accustom herself to what she terms his imprudences. But now the habit has been acquired. We pray together, we tremble together, and we fall asleep. If the devil were to enter this house, he would be allowed to do so. After all, what is there for us to fear in this house? There is always some one with us who is stronger than we. The devil may pass through it, but the good God dwells here. This suffices me. My brother has no longer any need of saying a word to me. I understand him without his speaking, and we abandon ourselves to the care of Providence. That is the way one has to do with a man who possesses grandeur of soul. I have interrogated my brother with regard to the information which you desire on the subject of the Faux family. You are aware that he knows everything, and that he has memories, because he is still a very good royalist. They really are a very ancient Norman family of the generalship of Caen. Five hundred years ago there was a Raoul de Faux, a Jean de Faux, and a Thomas de Faux, who were gentlemen, and one of whom was a seigneur de Rochefort. The last was Guy-Étienne-Alexandre, and was commander of a regiment, and something in the light horse of Bretagne. His daughter, Marie-Louise, married Adrien-Charles de Gramont, son of the Duke Louis de Gramont, peer of France, colonel of the French guards, and lieutenant-general of the army. It is written Faux, Fauq, and Faoucq. Good Madame, recommend us to the prayers of your sainted relative, Monsieur the Cardinal. As for your dear Sylvanie, she has done well in not wasting the few moments which she passes with you in writing to me. She is well, works as you would wish, and loves me. That is all that I desire. The souvenir which she sent through you reached me safely, and it makes me very happy. My health is not so very bad, and yet I grow thinner every day. Farewell; my paper is at an end, and this forces me to leave you. A thousand good wishes. P.S. Your grand nephew is charming. Do you know that he will soon be five years old? Yesterday he saw some one riding by on horseback who had on knee-caps, and he said, “What has he got on his knees?” He is a charming child! His little brother is dragging an old broom about the room, like a carriage, and saying, “Hu!”


There is a soul yonder which is lonely. I owe him a visit.


Thank God!


Thank you. I need nothing. This is the first time since I have been here, that any one has entered here. Who are you, sir?


My name is Bienvenu Myriel.


Bienvenu Myriel? I have heard that name. Are you the man whom the people call Monseigneur Welcome?


I am.


In that case, you are my bishop?


Something of that sort.


Enter, sir.


I am pleased to see that I have been misinformed. You certainly do not seem to me to be ill.


Monsieur. I am going to recover. I shall die three hours hence. I am something of a doctor; I know in what fashion the last hour draws on. Yesterday, only my feet were cold; to-day, the chill has ascended to my knees; now I feel it mounting to my waist; when it reaches the heart, I shall stop. The sun is beautiful, is it not? I had myself wheeled out here to take a last look at things. You can talk to me; it does not fatigue me. You have done well to come and look at a man who is on the point of death. It is well that there should be witnesses at that moment. One has one’s caprices; I should have liked to last until the dawn, but I know that I shall hardly live three hours. It will be night then. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair. One has no need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by starlight. Go to thy bed; thou wert awake all last night; thou art tired. I shall die while he sleeps. The two slumbers may be good neighbors.


I congratulate you. You did not vote for the death of the king, after all.


Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of the tyrant.


What do you mean to say?


I mean to say that man has a tyrant,—ignorance. I voted for the death of that tyrant. That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authority falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Man should be governed only by science.


And conscience,


It is the same thing. Conscience is the quantity of innate science which we have within us.


So far as Louis XVI. was concerned, I said ‘no.’ I did not think that I had the right to kill a man; but I felt it my duty to exterminate evil. I voted the end of the tyrant, that is to say, the end of prostitution for woman, the end of slavery for man, the end of night for the child. In voting for the Republic, I voted for that. I voted for fraternity, concord, the dawn. I have aided in the overthrow of prejudices and errors. The crumbling away of prejudices and errors causes light. We have caused the fall of the old world, and the old world, that vase of miseries, has become, through its upsetting upon the human race, an urn of joy.


Mixed joy,


You may say troubled joy, and to-day, after that fatal return of the past, which is called 1814, joy which has disappeared! Alas! The work was incomplete, I admit: we demolished the ancient regime in deeds; we were not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the wind is still there.


You have demolished. It may be of use to demolish, but I distrust a demolition complicated with wrath.


Right has its wrath, Bishop; and the wrath of right is an element of progress. In any case, and in spite of whatever may be said, the French Revolution is the most important step of the human race since the advent of Christ. Incomplete, it may be, but sublime. It set free all the unknown social quantities; it softened spirits, it calmed, appeased, enlightened; it caused the waves of civilization to flow over the earth. It was a good thing. The French Revolution is the consecration of humanity.


Yes? ’93!


Ah, there you go; ’93! I was expecting that word. A cloud had been forming for the space of fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen hundred years it burst. You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial.


The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the name of pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice. A thunderbolt should commit no error. Louis XVII.?


Louis XVII.! let us see. For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocent child? very good; in that case I mourn with you. Is it for the royal child? I demand time for reflection. To me, the brother of Cartouche, an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Grève, until death ensued, for the sole crime of having been the brother of Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., an innocent child, martyred in the tower of the Temple, for the sole crime of having been grandson of Louis XV.


Monsieur. I like not this conjunction of names.


Cartouche? Louis XV.? To which of the two do you object? Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christ loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge, full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried, ‘Sinite parvulos,’ he made no distinction between the little children. It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is its own crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in rags as in fleurs de lys.


That is true,


I persist. You have mentioned Louis XVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all the innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted? I agree to that. But in that case, as I have told you, we must go back further than ’93, and our tears must begin before Louis XVII. I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people.


I weep for all,


Equally! and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering longer.


Yes, sir, the people have been suffering a long while. And hold! that is not all, either; why have you just questioned me and talked to me about Louis XVII.? I know you not. Ever since I have been in these parts I have dwelt in this enclosure alone, never setting foot outside, and seeing no one but that child who helps me. Your name has reached me in a confused manner, it is true, and very badly pronounced, I must admit; but that signifies nothing: clever men have so many ways of imposing on that honest goodman, the people. By the way, I did not hear the sound of your carriage; you have left it yonder, behind the coppice at the fork of the roads, no doubt. I do not know you, I tell you. You have told me that you are the Bishop; but that affords me no information as to your moral personality. In short, I repeat my question. Who are you? You are a bishop; that is to say, a prince of the church, one of those gilded men with heraldic bearings and revenues, who have vast prebends,—the bishopric of D—— fifteen thousand francs settled income, ten thousand in perquisites; total, twenty-five thousand francs,—who have kitchens, who have liveries, who make good cheer, who eat moor-hens on Friday, who strut about, a lackey before, a lackey behind, in a gala coach, and who have palaces, and who roll in their carriages in the name of Jesus Christ who went barefoot! You are a prelate,—revenues, palace, horses, servants, good table, all the sensualities of life; you have this like the rest, and like the rest, you enjoy it; it is well; but this says either too much or too little; this does not enlighten me upon the intrinsic and essential value of the man who comes with the probable intention of bringing wisdom to me. To whom do I speak? Who are you?


Vermis sum—I am a worm.


A worm of the earth in a carriage?


So be it, sir. But explain to me how my carriage, which is a few paces off behind the trees yonder, how my good table and the moor-hens which I eat on Friday, how my twenty-five thousand francs income, how my palace and my lackeys prove that clemency is not a duty, and that ’93 was not inexorable.


Before replying to you. I beseech you to pardon me. I have just committed a wrong, sir. You are at my house, you are my guest, I owe you courtesy. You discuss my ideas, and it becomes me to confine myself to combating your arguments. Your riches and your pleasures are advantages which I hold over you in the debate; but good taste dictates that I shall not make use of them. I promise you to make no use of them in the future.


I thank you,


Let us return to the explanation which you have asked of me. Where were we? What were you saying to me? That ’93 was inexorable?


Inexorable; yes. What think you of Marat clapping his hands at the guillotine?


What think you of Bossuet chanting the Te Deum over the dragonnades?


Let me say a few words more in this and that direction; I am willing. Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human affirmation, ’93 is, alas! a rejoinder. You think it inexorable, sir; but what of the whole monarchy, sir? Carrier is a bandit; but what name do you give to Montrevel? Fouquier-Tainville is a rascal; but what is your opinion as to Lamoignon-Bâville? Maillard is terrible; but Saulx-Tavannes, if you please? Duchêne senior is ferocious; but what epithet will you allow me for the elder Letellier? Jourdan-Coupe-Tetê is a monster; but not so great a one as M. the Marquis de Louvois. Sir, sir, I am sorry for Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen; but I am also sorry for that poor Huguenot woman, who, in 1685, under Louis the Great, sir, while with a nursing infant, was bound, naked to the waist, to a stake, and the child kept at a distance; her breast swelled with milk and her heart with anguish; the little one, hungry and pale, beheld that breast and cried and agonized; the executioner said to the woman, a mother and a nurse, ‘Abjure!’ giving her her choice between the death of her infant and the death of her conscience. What say you to that torture of Tantalus as applied to a mother? Bear this well in mind sir: the French Revolution had its reasons for existence; its wrath will be absolved by the future; its result is the world made better. From its most terrible blows there comes forth a caress for the human race. I abridge, I stop, I have too much the advantage; moreover, I am dying. Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this fact is recognized,—that the human race has been treated harshly, but that it has progressed.


Progress should believe in God. Good cannot have an impious servitor. He who is an atheist is but a bad leader for the human race.


O thou! O ideal! Thou alone existest!


The infinite is. He is there. If the infinite had no person, person would be without limit; it would not be infinite; in other words, it would not exist. There is, then, an I. That I of the infinite is God.


This hour is the hour of God. Do you not think that it would be regrettable if we had met in vain?


Bishop. I have passed my life in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty years of age when my country called me and commanded me to concern myself with its affairs. I obeyed. Abuses existed, I combated them; tyrannies existed, I destroyed them; rights and principles existed, I proclaimed and confessed them. Our territory was invaded, I defended it; France was menaced, I offered my breast. I was not rich; I am poor. I have been one of the masters of the state; the vaults of the treasury were encumbered with specie to such a degree that we were forced to shore up the walls, which were on the point of bursting beneath the weight of gold and silver; I dined in Dead Tree Street, at twenty-two sous. I have succored the oppressed, I have comforted the suffering. I tore the cloth from the altar, it is true; but it was to bind up the wounds of my country. I have always upheld the march forward of the human race, forward towards the light, and I have sometimes resisted progress without pity. I have, when the occasion offered, protected my own adversaries, men of your profession. And there is at Peteghem, in Flanders, at the very spot where the Merovingian kings had their summer palace, a convent of Urbanists, the Abbey of Sainte Claire en Beaulieu, which I saved in 1793. I have done my duty according to my powers, and all the good that I was able. After which, I was hunted down, pursued, persecuted, blackened, jeered at, scorned, cursed, proscribed. For many years past, I with my white hair have been conscious that many people think they have the right to despise me; to the poor ignorant masses I present the visage of one damned. And I accept this isolation of hatred, without hating any one myself. Now I am eighty-six years old; I am on the point of death. What is it that you have come to ask of me?


Your blessing,


Was the bedside of such a dying man as that the proper place for a bishop? There was evidently no conversion to be expected. All those revolutionists are backsliders. Then why go there? What was there to be seen there? He must have been very curious indeed to see a soul carried off by the devil.


Monseigneur, people are inquiring when Your Greatness will receive the red cap!


Oh! oh! that’s a coarse color. It is lucky that those who despise it in a cap revere it in a hat.


I embarrassed them. The outside air penetrated to them through me. I produced on them the effect of an open door. What would you have? Those gentlemen are princes. I am only a poor peasant bishop. What beautiful clocks! What beautiful carpets! What beautiful liveries! They must be a great trouble. I would not have all those superfluities, crying incessantly in my ears: ‘There are people who are hungry! There are people who are cold! There are poor people! There are poor people!’


I will die, rather than wear the three frogs upon my heart! The gouty old creature in English gaiters! let him take himself off to Prussia with that queue of his.


Credo in Patrem,


Thou art with God!


Poor beast! It is not its fault!


Just survey the spectacle of the world: all war against all; the strongest has the most wit. Your love each other is nonsense.


Well, if it is nonsense, the soul should shut itself up in it, as the pearl in the oyster.


I am going to the house of a brave man of my acquaintance


What do you wish, sir?


Food and lodging,


Nothing easier. By paying for it.


I have money.


In that case, we are at your service,


Will dinner be ready soon?


Immediately,


Immediately. I cannot receive you, sir,


What! Are you afraid that I will not pay you? Do you want me to pay you in advance? I have money, I tell you.


It is not that.


What then?


You have money—


Yes,


And I, have no room.


Put me in the stable.


I cannot.


Why?


The horses take up all the space.


Very well! a corner of the loft then, a truss of straw. We will see about that after dinner.


I cannot give you any dinner.


Ah! bah! But I am dying of hunger. I have been walking since sunrise. I have travelled twelve leagues. I pay. I wish to eat.


I have nothing,


Nothing! and all that?


All that is engaged.


By whom?


By messieurs the wagoners.


How many are there of them?


Twelve.


There is enough food there for twenty.


They have engaged the whole of it and paid for it in advance.


I am at an inn; I am hungry, and I shall remain.


Go away!


Stop! there’s enough of that sort of talk. Do you want me to tell you your name? Your name is Jean Valjean. Now do you want me to tell you who you are? When I saw you come in I suspected something; I sent to the town-hall, and this was the reply that was sent to me. Can you read? I am in the habit of being polite to every one. Go away!


Who goes there?


Some one who wants supper and bed.


Good. We furnish supper and bed here.


There is the fire. The supper is cooking in the pot. Come and warm yourself, comrade.


You are going to get out of here.


Ah! You know?—


Yes.


I was sent away from the other inn.


And you are to be turned out of this one.


Where would you have me go?


Elsewhere.


Turnkey, will you have the kindness to admit me, and give me a lodging for the night?


The prison is not an inn. Get yourself arrested, and you will be admitted.


It seems to me, husband, that some one is knocking.


No,


Pardon me, sir. Could you, in consideration of payment, give me a plate of soup and a corner of that shed yonder in the garden, in which to sleep? Tell me; can you? For money?


Who are you?


I have just come from Puy-Moisson. I have walked all day long. I have travelled twelve leagues. Can you?—if I pay?


I would not refuse, to lodge any respectable man who would pay me. But why do you not go to the inn?


There is no room.


Bah! Impossible. This is neither a fair nor a market day. Have you been to Labarre?


Well?


I do not know. He did not receive me.


Have you been to What’s-his-name’s, in the Rue Chaffaut?


He did not receive me either.


Are you the man?—


Clear out!


For pity’s sake, a glass of water,


A shot from my gun!


I am not even a dog!


What are you doing there, my friend?


As you see, my good woman, I am sleeping.


On this bench?


I have had a mattress of wood for nineteen years, to-day I have a mattress of stone.


You have been a soldier?


Yes, my good woman, a soldier.


Why do you not go to the inn?


Because I have no money.


Alas! I have only four sous in my purse.


Give it to me all the same.


You cannot obtain lodgings in an inn for so small a sum. But have you tried? It is impossible for you to pass the night thus. You are cold and hungry, no doubt. Some one might have given you a lodging out of charity.


I have knocked at all doors.


Well?


I have been driven away everywhere.


You have knocked at all doors?


Yes.


Have you knocked at that one?


No.


Knock there.


Did you hear what Madame Magloire is saying, brother?


I have heard something of it in a vague way. Come, what is the matter? What is the matter? Are we in any great danger? Really!


Yes, Monseigneur. That is how it is. There will be some sort of catastrophe in this town to-night. Every one says so. And withal, the police is so badly regulated The idea of living in a mountainous country, and not even having lights in the streets at night! One goes out. Black as ovens, indeed! And I say, Monseigneur, and Mademoiselle there says with me—


I, say nothing. What my brother does is well done.


We say that this house is not safe at all; that if Monseigneur will permit, I will go and tell Paulin Musebois, the locksmith, to come and replace the ancient locks on the doors; we have them, and it is only the work of a moment; for I say that nothing is more terrible than a door which can be opened from the outside with a latch by the first passer-by; and I say that we need bolts, Monseigneur, if only for this night; moreover, Monseigneur has the habit of always saying ‘come in’; and besides, even in the middle of the night, O mon Dieu! there is no need to ask permission.


Come in,


See here. My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. I have passed nineteen years in the galleys. I was liberated four days ago, and am on my way to Pontarlier, which is my destination. I have been walking for four days since I left Toulon. I have travelled a dozen leagues to-day on foot. This evening, when I arrived in these parts, I went to an inn, and they turned me out, because of my yellow passport, which I had shown at the town-hall. I had to do it. I went to an inn. They said to me, ‘Be off,’ at both places. No one would take me. I went to the prison; the jailer would not admit me. I went into a dog’s kennel; the dog bit me and chased me off, as though he had been a man. One would have said that he knew who I was. I went into the fields, intending to sleep in the open air, beneath the stars. There were no stars. I thought it was going to rain, and I re-entered the town, to seek the recess of a doorway. Yonder, in the square, I meant to sleep on a stone bench. A good woman pointed out your house to me, and said to me, ‘Knock there!’ I have knocked. What is this place? Do you keep an inn? I have money—savings. One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous, which I earned in the galleys by my labor, in the course of nineteen years. I will pay. What is that to me? I have money. I am very weary; twelve leagues on foot; I am very hungry. Are you willing that I should remain?


Madame Magloire, you will set another place.


Stop, that’s not it. Did you hear? I am a galley-slave; a convict. I come from the galleys. Here’s my passport. Yellow, as you see. This serves to expel me from every place where I go. Will you read it? I know how to read. I learned in the galleys. There is a school there for those who choose to learn. Hold, this is what they put on this passport: ‘Jean Valjean, discharged convict, native of’—that is nothing to you—‘has been nineteen years in the galleys: five years for house-breaking and burglary; fourteen years for having attempted to escape on four occasions. He is a very dangerous man.’ There! Every one has cast me out. Are you willing to receive me? Is this an inn? Will you give me something to eat and a bed? Have you a stable?


Madame Magloire, you will put white sheets on the bed in the alcove. Sit down, sir, and warm yourself. We are going to sup in a few moments, and your bed will be prepared while you are supping.


Really? What! You will keep me? You do not drive me forth? A convict! You call me sir! You do not address me as thou? ‘Get out of here, you dog!’ is what people always say to me. I felt sure that you would expel me, so I told you at once who I am. Oh, what a good woman that was who directed me hither! I am going to sup! A bed with a mattress and sheets, like the rest of the world! a bed! It is nineteen years since I have slept in a bed! You actually do not want me to go! You are good people. Besides, I have money. I will pay well. Pardon me, monsieur the inn-keeper, but what is your name? I will pay anything you ask. You are a fine man. You are an inn-keeper, are you not?


I am, a priest who lives here.


A priest! Oh, what a fine priest! Then you are not going to demand any money of me? You are the curé, are you not? the curé of this big church? Well! I am a fool, truly! I had not perceived your skull-cap. You are humane, Monsieur le Curé; you have not scorned me. A good priest is a very good thing. Then you do not require me to pay?


No, keep your money. How much have you? Did you not tell me one hundred and nine francs?


And fifteen sous,


One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous. And how long did it take you to earn that?


Nineteen years.


Nineteen years!


I have still the whole of my money. In four days I have spent only twenty-five sous, which I earned by helping unload some wagons at Grasse. Since you are an abbé, I will tell you that we had a chaplain in the galleys. And one day I saw a bishop there. Monseigneur is what they call him. He was the Bishop of Majore at Marseilles. He is the curé who rules over the other curés, you understand. Pardon me, I say that very badly; but it is such a far-off thing to me! You understand what we are! He said mass in the middle of the galleys, on an altar. He had a pointed thing, made of gold, on his head; it glittered in the bright light of midday. We were all ranged in lines on the three sides, with cannons with lighted matches facing us. We could not see very well. He spoke; but he was too far off, and we did not hear. That is what a bishop is like.


Madame Magloire, place those things as near the fire as possible. The night wind is harsh on the Alps. You must be cold, sir. This lamp gives a very bad light,


Monsieur le Curé, you are good; you do not despise me. You receive me into your house. You light your candles for me. Yet I have not concealed from you whence I come and that I am an unfortunate man.


You could not help telling me who you were. This is not my house; it is the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer, you are hungry and thirsty; you are welcome. And do not thank me; do not say that I receive you in my house. No one is at home here, except the man who needs a refuge. I say to you, who are passing by, that you are much more at home here than I am myself. Everything here is yours. What need have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me you had one which I knew.


Really? You knew what I was called?


Yes, you are called my brother.


Stop, Monsieur le Curé. I was very hungry when I entered here; but you are so good, that I no longer know what has happened to me.


You have suffered much?


Oh, the red coat, the ball on the ankle, a plank to sleep on, heat, cold, toil, the convicts, the thrashings, the double chain for nothing, the cell for one word; even sick and in bed, still the chain! Dogs, dogs are happier! Nineteen years! I am forty-six. Now there is the yellow passport. That is what it is like.


Yes, you have come from a very sad place. Listen. There will be more joy in heaven over the tear-bathed face of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men. If you emerge from that sad place with thoughts of hatred and of wrath against mankind, you are deserving of pity; if you emerge with thoughts of good-will and of peace, you are more worthy than any one of us. To table! It strikes me there is something missing on this table.


Monsieur le Curé of the good God, all this is far too good for me; but I must say that the carters who would not allow me to eat with them keep a better table than you do.


They are more fatigued than I.


No, they have more money. You are poor; I see that plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a curé? Ah, if the good God were but just, you certainly ought to be a curé!


The good God is more than just. Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you are going?


With my road marked out for me. I must be on my way by daybreak to-morrow. Travelling is hard. If the nights are cold, the days are hot.


You are going to a good country. During the Revolution my family was ruined. I took refuge in Franche-Comté at first, and there I lived for some time by the toil of my hands. My will was good. I found plenty to occupy me. One has only to choose. There are paper mills, tanneries, distilleries, oil factories, watch factories on a large scale, steel mills, copper works, twenty iron foundries at least, four of which, situated at Lods, at Châtillon, at Audincourt, and at Beure, are tolerably large. Have we not some relatives in those parts, my dear sister?


We did have some; among others, M. de Lucenet, who was captain of the gates at Pontarlier under the old régime.


Yes, but in ’93, one had no longer any relatives, one had only one’s arms. I worked. They have, in the country of Pontarlier, whither you are going, Monsieur Valjean, a truly patriarchal and truly charming industry, my sister. It is their cheese-dairies, which they call fruitières. They engage the services of a cheese-maker, whom they call the grurin; the grurin receives the milk of the associates three times a day, and marks the quantity on a double tally. It is towards the end of April that the work of the cheese-dairies begins; it is towards the middle of June that the cheese-makers drive their cows to the mountains.


Well,


who exercise a gentle labor near heaven, and who are happy because they are innocent


You must be in great need of your bed.


Monsieur, I will conduct you to your room.


Well, may you pass a good night. To-morrow morning, before you set out, you shall drink a cup of warm milk from our cows.


Thanks, Monsieur l’Abbé,


Ah! really! You lodge me in your house, close to yourself like this? Have you really reflected well? How do you know that I have not been an assassin?


That is the concern of the good God.


I was a tree-pruner at Faverolles.


It is always the same story.


he was in the way


Can one wait when one is hungry?


Flee!


Remain!


It is a dream.


Thou art free!


thirty sous


That is enough for thee.


Beware of the prison.


Come on!


Monseigneur, Monseigneur! does your Grace know where the basket of silver is?


Yes,


Jesus the Lord be blessed! I did not know what had become of it.


Here it is.


Well! Nothing in it! And the silver?


Ah, so it is the silver which troubles you? I don’t know where it is.


Great, good God! It is stolen! That man who was here last night has stolen it. Monseigneur, the man is gone! The silver has been stolen! Stay! yonder is the way he went. He jumped over into Cochefilet Lane. Ah, the abomination! He has stolen our silver!


And, in the first place, was that silver ours? Madame Magloire, I have for a long time detained that silver wrongfully. It belonged to the poor. Who was that man? A poor man, evidently.


Alas! Jesus! It is not for my sake, nor for Mademoiselle’s. It makes no difference to us. But it is for the sake of Monseigneur. What is Monseigneur to eat with now?


Ah, come! Are there no such things as pewter forks and spoons?


Pewter has an odor.


Iron forks and spoons, then.


Iron has a taste.


Very well, wooden ones then.


A pretty idea, truly, to take in a man like that! and to lodge him close to one’s self! And how fortunate that he did nothing but steal! Ah, mon Dieu! it makes one shudder to think of it!


Come in,


Monseigneur—


Monseigneur! So he is not the curé?


Silence! He is Monseigneur the Bishop.


Ah! here you are! I am glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?


Monseigneur, so what this man said is true, then? We came across him. He was walking like a man who is running away. We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this silver—


And he told you, that it had been given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed the night? I see how the matter stands. And you have brought him back here? It is a mistake.


In that case, we can let him go?


Certainly,


Is it true that I am to be released?


Yes, thou art released; dost thou not understand?


My friend, before you go, here are your candlesticks. Take them. Now, go in peace. By the way, when you return, my friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with anything but a latch, either by day or by night. You may retire, gentlemen. Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man. Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.


Sir, my money.


What is your name?


Little Gervais, sir.


Go away,


Sir, give me back my money. My money, sir. My piece of money! my white piece! my silver! I want my piece of money! my piece of forty sous!


Who’s there?


I, sir. Little Gervais! I! Give me back my forty sous, if you please! Take your foot away, sir, if you please! Come now, will you take your foot away? Take your foot away, or we’ll see!


Ah! It’s still you! Will you take yourself off!


What is this?


Ah! Little Gervais! Little Gervais!


Little Gervais! Little Gervais! Monsieur le Curé, have you seen a child pass?


No,


One named Little Gervais?


I have seen no one.


Monsieur le Curé, this is for your poor people. Monsieur le Curé, he was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and a hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?


I have not seen him.


Little Gervais? There are no villages here? Can you tell me?


If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them.


For your poor. Monsieur l’Abbé, have me arrested. I am a thief.


Little Gervais! Little Gervais! Little Gervais! Little Gervais! I am a wretch!


You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your soul. I take it away from the spirit of perversity; I give it to the good God.


That will attract purchasers,


Sapristi! I regret the time when I saw Bonaparte and Talma enter the Bel Sauvage, arm in arm.


You do not know me, Mamemoiselle?


No.


I am your mother.


Yes, sir.


the skull at thirty, the knee at forty


Fantine, Dahlia, Zéphine, and Favourite have been teasing us for nearly a year to give them a surprise. We have promised them solemnly that we would. They are forever talking about it to us, to me in particular, just as the old women in Naples cry to Saint Januarius, ‘Faccia gialluta, fa o miracolo, Yellow face, perform thy miracle,’ so our beauties say to me incessantly, ‘Tholomyès, when will you bring forth your surprise?’ At the same time our parents keep writing to us. Pressure on both sides. The moment has arrived, it seems to me; let us discuss the question.


That is an idea.


It is a good hour to emerge from happiness.


This must be very beautiful when there is water!


The slugs are crawling in the paths,—a sign of rain, children.


There is one too many of them,


That Tholomyès is astounding! What trousers! What energy!


You always have a queer look about you,


I offer you asses!


Soy de Badajoz, Amor me llama, Toda mi alma, Es en mi ojos, Porque enseñas, A tuas piernas. Badajoz is my home, And Love is my name; To my eyes in flame, All my soul doth come; For instruction meet I receive at thy feet


I don’t like to have people put on airs like that, bah! there is no such thing as fatigue on Sunday, on Sunday fatigue does not work. And the surprise? I claim the surprise.


Patience,


They made beneath the table A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable,


Rendez-nous notre père de Gand, Rendez-nous notre père. Give us back our father from Ghent, Give us back our father.


Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be feared from these people. They are as heedless and as indolent as cats. The populace is restless in the provinces; it is not in Paris. These are very pretty men, Sire. It would take all of two of them to make one of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of this population should have diminished in the last fifty years; and the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble.


Blachevelle, I adore you.


What would you do, Favourite, if I were to cease to love you?


I! Ah! Do not say that even in jest! If you were to cease to love me, I would spring after you, I would scratch you, I should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you arrested. Yes, I would scream to the police! Ah! I should not restrain myself, not at all! Rabble!


So you really idolize him deeply, that Blachevelle of yours?


I? I detest him. He is avaricious. I love the little fellow opposite me in my house. He is very nice, that young man; do you know him? One can see that he is an actor by profession. I love actors. As soon as he comes in, his mother says to him: ‘Ah! mon Dieu! my peace of mind is gone. There he goes with his shouting. But, my dear, you are splitting my head!’ So he goes up to rat-ridden garrets, to black holes, as high as he can mount, and there he sets to singing, declaiming, how do I know what? so that he can be heard downstairs! He earns twenty sous a day at an attorney’s by penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas. Ah! he is very nice. He idolizes me so, that one day when he saw me making batter for some pancakes, he said to me: ‘Mamselle, make your gloves into fritters, and I will eat them.’ It is only artists who can say such things as that. Ah! he is very nice. I am in a fair way to go out of my head over that little fellow. Never mind; I tell Blachevelle that I adore him—how I lie! Hey! How I do lie! I am sad, you see, Dahlia. It has done nothing but rain all summer; the wind irritates me; the wind does not abate. Blachevelle is very stingy; there are hardly any green peas in the market; one does not know what to eat. I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and that disgusts me with life.


Let us not talk at random nor too fast. Let us reflect, if we wish to be brilliant. Too much improvisation empties the mind in a stupid way. Running beer gathers no froth. No haste, gentlemen. Let us mingle majesty with the feast. Let us eat with meditation; let us make haste slowly. Let us not hurry. Consider the springtime; if it makes haste, it is done for; that is to say, it gets frozen. Excess of zeal ruins peach-trees and apricot-trees. Excess of zeal kills the grace and the mirth of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen! Grimod de la Reynière agrees with Talleyrand.


Leave us in peace, Tholomyès,


Down with the tyrant!


Bombarda, Bombance, and Bambochel!


Sunday exists,


We are sober,


Tholomyès, contemplate my calmness .


You are the Marquis of that. Friends. Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the skies must not be received with too much stupor. Everything which falls in that way is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect. The pun is the dung of the mind which soars. The jest falls, no matter where; and the mind after producing a piece of stupidity plunges into the azure depths. A whitish speck flattened against the rock does not prevent the condor from soaring aloft. Far be it from me to insult the pun! I honor it in proportion to its merits; nothing more. All the most august, the most sublime, the most charming of humanity, and perhaps outside of humanity, have made puns. Jesus Christ made a pun on St. Peter, Moses on Isaac, Æschylus on Polynices, Cleopatra on Octavius. And observe that Cleopatra’s pun preceded the battle of Actium, and that had it not been for it, no one would have remembered the city of Toryne, a Greek name which signifies a ladle. That once conceded, I return to my exhortation. I repeat, brothers, I repeat, no zeal, no hubbub, no excess; even in witticisms, gayety, jollities, or plays on words. Listen to me. I have the prudence of Amphiaraüs and the baldness of Cæsar. There must be a limit, even to rebuses. Est modus in rebus. There must be a limit, even to dinners. You are fond of apple turnovers, ladies; do not indulge in them to excess. Even in the matter of turnovers, good sense and art are requisite. Gluttony chastises the glutton, Gula punit Gulax. Indigestion is charged by the good God with preaching morality to stomachs. And remember this: each one of our passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full. In all things the word finis must be written in good season; self-control must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt must be drawn on appetite; one must set one’s own fantasy to the violin, and carry one’s self to the post. The sage is the man who knows how, at a given moment, to effect his own arrest. Have some confidence in me, for I have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law, according to the verdict of my examinations, for I know the difference between the question put and the question pending, for I have sustained a thesis in Latin upon the manner in which torture was administered at Rome at the epoch when Munatius Demens was quæstor of the Parricide; because I am going to be a doctor, apparently it does not follow that it is absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend you to moderation in your desires. It is true that my name is Félix Tholomyès; I speak well. Happy is he who, when the hour strikes, takes a heroic resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origenes.


Félix, what a pretty word! I love that name. It is Latin; it means prosper.


Quirites, gentlemen, caballeros, my friends. Do you wish never to feel the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing more simple. Here is the receipt: lemonade, excessive exercise, hard labor; work yourself to death, drag blocks, sleep not, hold vigil, gorge yourself with nitrous beverages, and potions of nymphæas; drink emulsions of poppies and agnus castus; season this with a strict diet, starve yourself, and add thereto cold baths, girdles of herbs, the application of a plate of lead, lotions made with the subacetate of lead, and fomentations of oxycrat.


I prefer a woman,


Woman, distrust her. Woe to him who yields himself to the unstable heart of woman! Woman is perfidious and disingenuous. She detests the serpent from professional jealousy. The serpent is the shop over the way.


Tholomyès! you are drunk!


Pardieu,


Then be gay,


I agree to that. Glory to wine! Nunc te, Bacche, canam! Pardon me ladies; that is Spanish. And the proof of it, señoras, is this: like people, like cask. The arrobe of Castille contains sixteen litres; the cantaro of Alicante, twelve; the almude of the Canaries, twenty-five; the cuartin of the Balearic Isles, twenty-six; the boot of Tzar Peter, thirty. Long live that Tzar who was great, and long live his boot, which was still greater! Ladies, take the advice of a friend; make a mistake in your neighbor if you see fit. The property of love is to err. A love affair is not made to crouch down and brutalize itself like an English serving-maid who has callouses on her knees from scrubbing. It is not made for that; it errs gayly, our gentle love. It has been said, error is human; I say, error is love. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zéphine, O Joséphine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not all askew. You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has sat down by mistake. As for Favourite, O nymphs and muses! one day when Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue Guérin-Boisseau, he espied a beautiful girl with white stockings well drawn up, which displayed her legs. This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell in love. The one he loved was Favourite. O Favourite, thou hast Ionian lips. There was a Greek painter named Euphorion, who was surnamed the painter of the lips. That Greek alone would have been worthy to paint thy mouth. Listen! before thee, there was never a creature worthy of the name. Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is thou who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the beautiful woman. O Favourite, I cease to address you as ‘thou,’ because I pass from poetry to prose. You were speaking of my name a little while ago. That touched me; but let us, whoever we may be, distrust names. They may delude us. I am called Félix, and I am not happy. Words are liars. Let us not blindly accept the indications which they afford us. It would be a mistake to write to Liège 2 for corks, and to Pau for gloves. Miss Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa. A flower should smell sweet, and woman should have wit. I say nothing of Fantine; she is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person; she is a phantom possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun, who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without very well knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her eyes fixed on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds than are in existence. O Fantine, know this: I, Tholomyès, I am an illusion; but she does not even hear me, that blond maid of Chimeras! as for the rest, everything about her is freshness, suavity, youth, sweet morning light. O Fantine, maid worthy of being called Marguerite or Pearl, you are a woman from the beauteous Orient. Ladies, a second piece of advice: do not marry; marriage is a graft; it takes well or ill; avoid that risk. But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words. Girls are incurable on the subject of marriage, and all that we wise men can say will not prevent the waistcoat-makers and the shoe-stitchers from dreaming of husbands studded with diamonds. Well, so be it; but, my beauties, remember this, you eat too much sugar. You have but one fault, O woman, and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling sex, your pretty little white teeth adore sugar. Now, heed me well, sugar is a salt. All salts are withering. Sugar is the most desiccating of all salts; it sucks the liquids of the blood through the veins; hence the coagulation, and then the solidification of the blood; hence tubercles in the lungs, hence death. That is why diabetes borders on consumption. Then, do not crunch sugar, and you will live. I turn to the men: gentlemen, make conquest, rob each other of your well-beloved without remorse. Chassez across. In love there are no friends. Everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open. No quarter, war to the death! a pretty woman is a casus belli; a pretty woman is flagrant misdemeanor. All the invasions of history have been determined by petticoats. Woman is man’s right. Romulus carried off the Sabines; William carried off the Saxon women; Cæsar carried off the Roman women. The man who is not loved soars like a vulture over the mistresses of other men; and for my own part, to all those unfortunate men who are widowers, I throw the sublime proclamation of Bonaparte to the army of Italy: “Soldiers, you are in need of everything; the enemy has it.”


Take breath, Tholomyès,


The father turkey-cocks so grave Some money to an agent gave, That master good Clermont-Tonnerre Might be made pope on Saint Johns’ day fair. But this good Clermont could not be Made pope, because no priest was he; And then their agent, whose wrath burned, With all their money back returned.


Down with wisdom! Forget all that I have said. Let us be neither prudes nor prudent men nor prudhommes. I propose a toast to mirth; be merry. Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and the digest. Let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female! Joy in the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere! The nightingale is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee! O Luxembourg! O Georgics of the Rue Madame, and of the Allée de l’Observatoire! O pensive infantry soldiers! O all those charming nurses who, while they guard the children, amuse themselves! The pampas of America would please me if I had not the arcades of the Odéon. My soul flits away into the virgin forests and to the savannas. All is beautiful. The flies buzz in the sun. The sun has sneezed out the humming bird. Embrace me, Fantine!


The dinners are better at Édon’s than at Bombarda’s,


I prefer Bombarda to Édon. There is more luxury. It is more Asiatic. Look at the room downstairs; there are mirrors on the walls.


I prefer them on my plate,


Look at the knives. The handles are of silver at Bombarda’s and of bone at Édon’s. Now, silver is more valuable than bone.


Except for those who have a silver chin,


Tholomyès, Listolier and I were having a discussion just now.


A discussion is a good thing, a quarrel is better.


We were disputing about philosophy.


Well?


Which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza?


Désaugiers. I consent to live. All is not at an end on earth since we can still talk nonsense. For that I return thanks to the immortal gods. We lie. One lies, but one laughs. One affirms, but one doubts. The unexpected bursts forth from the syllogism. That is fine. There are still human beings here below who know how to open and close the surprise box of the paradox merrily. This, ladies, which you are drinking with so tranquil an air is Madeira wine, you must know, from the vineyard of Coural das Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen fathoms above the level of the sea. Attention while you drink! three hundred and seventeen fathoms! and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eating-house keeper, gives you those three hundred and seventeen fathoms for four francs and fifty centimes.


Tholomyès, your opinions fix the law. Who is your favorite author?


Ber—


Quin?


No; Choux. Honor to Bombarda! He would equal Munophis of Elephanta if he could but get me an Indian dancing-girl, and Thygelion of Chæronea if he could bring me a Greek courtesan; for, oh, ladies! there were Bombardas in Greece and in Egypt. Apuleius tells us of them. Alas! always the same, and nothing new; nothing more unpublished by the creator in creation! Nil sub sole novum, says Solomon; amor omnibus idem, says Virgil; and Carabine mounts with Carabin into the bark at Saint-Cloud, as Aspasia embarked with Pericles upon the fleet at Samos. One last word. Do you know what Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at an epoch when women had, as yet, no soul, she was a soul; a soul of a rosy and purple hue, more ardent hued than fire, fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met; she was the goddess prostitute; Socrates plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was created in case a mistress should be needed for Prometheus.


Elle était de ce monde ou coucous et carrosses Ont le même destin; Et, rosse, elle a vécu ce que vivant les rosses, L’espace d’un mâtin!


Poor horse!


There is Fantine on the point of crying over horses. How can one be such a pitiful fool as that!


Come, now! the surprise?


Exactly. The moment has arrived. Gentlemen, the hour for giving these ladies a surprise has struck. Wait for us a moment, ladies.


It begins with a kiss,


On the brow,


It is beginning to be amusing already,


Don’t be too long, we are waiting for you. Don’t be long!


What are they going to bring us?


It will certainly be something pretty,


For my part. I want it to be of gold.


What a row! One would say that it was a pile of chains flying away.


That’s odd! I thought the diligence never stopped.


This Fantine is surprising. I am coming to take a look at her out of curiosity. She is dazzled by the simplest things. Suppose a case: I am a traveller; I say to the diligence, ‘I will go on in advance; you shall pick me up on the quay as you pass.’ The diligence passes, sees me, halts, and takes me. That is done every day. You do not know life, my dear. Well, and the surprise?


Yes, by the way, the famous surprise?


They are a very long time about it!


What is that?


It is a paper that those gentlemen left for these ladies.


Why did you not bring it at once?


Because, the gentlemen ordered me not to deliver it to the ladies for an hour.


Stop! there is no address; but this is what is written on it— THIS IS THE SURPRISE. OUR BELOVED:— “You must know that we have parents. Parents—you do not know much about such things. They are called fathers and mothers by the civil code, which is puerile and honest. Now, these parents groan, these old folks implore us, these good men and these good women call us prodigal sons; they desire our return, and offer to kill calves for us. Being virtuous, we obey them. At the hour when you read this, five fiery horses will be bearing us to our papas and mammas. We are pulling up our stakes, as Bossuet says. We are going; we are gone. We flee in the arms of Laffitte and on the wings of Caillard. The Toulouse diligence tears us from the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our little beauties! We return to society, to duty, to respectability, at full trot, at the rate of three leagues an hour. It is necessary for the good of the country that we should be, like the rest of the world, prefects, fathers of families, rural police, and councillors of state. Venerate us. We are sacrificing ourselves. Mourn for us in haste, and replace us with speed. If this letter lacerates you, do the same by it. Adieu. “For the space of nearly two years we have made you happy. We bear you no grudge for that. “Signed: BLACHEVELLE. FAMUEIL. LISTOLIER. FÉLIX THOLOMYÈS. “Postscriptum. The dinner is paid for.” Well! it’s a very pretty farce, all the same.


It is very droll,


That must have been Blachevelle’s idea. It makes me in love with him. No sooner is he gone than he is loved. This is an adventure, indeed.


No, it was one of Tholomyès’ ideas. That is evident.


In that case, death to Blachevelle, and long live Tholomyès!


Long live Tholomyès!


It must be, said a warrior.


You have two beautiful children there, Madame.


To the fair and tender Imogene—


Who takes those children seriously! One only shrugs one’s shoulders over such children!


You have two pretty children, Madame.


My name is Madame Thénardier. We keep this inn. It must be so; I am a knight, And I am off to Palestine.


Now amuse yourselves, all three of you.


What is your little one’s name?


Cosette.


How old is she?


She is going on three.


That is the age of my eldest. How easily children get acquainted at once! one would swear that they were three sisters!


Will you keep my child for me?


I must see about it,


I will give you six francs a month.


Not for less than seven francs. And six months paid in advance.


Six times seven makes forty-two,


I will give it,


And fifteen francs in addition for preliminary expenses,


Total, fifty-seven francs. It must be, said a warrior.


I will pay it. I have eighty francs. I shall have enough left to reach the country, by travelling on foot. I shall earn money there, and as soon as I have a little I will return for my darling.


The little one has an outfit?


That is my husband,


Of course she has an outfit, the poor treasure.—I understood perfectly that it was your husband.—And a beautiful outfit, too! a senseless outfit, everything by the dozen, and silk gowns like a lady. It is here, in my carpet-bag.


You must hand it over,


Of course I shall give it to you. It would be very queer if I were to leave my daughter quite naked!


That's good,


I have just seen a woman crying in the street so that it was enough to rend your heart.


That will serve to pay my note for one hundred and ten francs which falls due to-morrow; I lacked fifty francs. Do you know that I should have had a bailiff and a protest after me? You played the mouse-trap nicely with your young ones.


Without suspecting it,


Cosette is doing wonderfully well.


A fine favor she is doing us, in sooth! What does she expect us to do with her seven francs?


Those Thénardiers are good people. They are not rich, and yet they are bringing up a poor child who was abandoned on their hands!


the creature eating Let her not bother me, or I’ll fire her brat right into the middle of her secrets. I must have an increase.


The sly creature,


The two prime functionaries of the state are the nurse and the schoolmaster.


He’s a jolly fellow who means to get rich. He is an ambitious man.


There! what did we say!


After all, he is some sort of an adventurer.


He is an ignorant man, of no education. No one knows where he came from. He would not know how to behave in society. It has not been absolutely proved that he knows how to read.


He is a man of business. He is an ambitious man. He is an adventurer. He is a brute.


A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he drawing back before the good which he can do?


What a good-natured bear!


They are dead. Nevertheless, it would be a good thing to know how to make use of them. When the nettle is young, the leaf makes an excellent vegetable; when it is older, it has filaments and fibres like hemp and flax. Nettle cloth is as good as linen cloth. Chopped up, nettles are good for poultry; pounded, they are good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle, mixed with fodder, gives gloss to the hair of animals; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow coloring-matter. Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which can be cut twice. And what is required for the nettle? A little soil, no care, no culture. Only the seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it. That is all. With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle! Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.


There is a rich man who has not a haughty air. There is a happy man who has not a contented air.


Monsieur le Maire, pray show us your chamber. It is said to be a grotto.


for they were hall-marked,


M. le Maire is doubtless a cousin of the late Bishop of D——?


No, Madame.


But, you are wearing mourning for him.


It is because I was a servant in his family in my youth.


The functionary can make no mistake; the magistrate is never the wrong. These men are irremediably lost. Nothing good can come from them.


I think I have him!


Help! Who will be good and save the old man?


Is there a jack-screw to be had?


One has been sent for,


How long will it take to get it?


They have gone for the nearest, to Flachot’s place, where there is a farrier; but it makes no difference; it will take a good quarter of an hour.


A quarter of an hour! It is impossible to wait another quarter of an hour,


We must!


But it will be too late then! Don’t you see that the cart is sinking?


Well!


Listen, there is still room enough under the cart to allow a man to crawl beneath it and raise it with his back. Only half a minute, and the poor man can be taken out. Is there any one here who has stout loins and heart? There are five louis d’or to be earned! Ten louis,


A man would need to be devilish strong. And then he runs the risk of getting crushed!


Come, twenty louis.


It is not the will which is lacking. It is strength. One would have to be a terrible man to do such a thing as lift a cart like that on his back. Monsieur Madeleine, I have never known but one man capable of doing what you ask. He was a convict.


Ah!


In the galleys at Toulon.


I am strangling! My ribs are breaking! a screw! something! Ah!


Is there, then, no one who wishes to earn twenty louis and save the life of this poor old man?


I have never known but one man who could take the place of a screw, and he was that convict.


Ah! It is crushing me!


Father Madeleine, come out!


Monsieur Madeleine, go away! You see that I am fated to die! Leave me! You will get yourself crushed also!


Make haste! Help!


I purchase your horse and cart.


She must be a pretty sort of a woman.


For my five and thirty francs I have freed my mind. I have seen the child.


I have seen the child.


If you leave, I will have you arrested as a thief.


You are young and pretty; you can pay.


Bah! I say to myself, by only sleeping five hours, and working all the rest of the time at my sewing, I shall always manage to nearly earn my bread. And, then, when one is sad, one eats less. Well, sufferings, uneasiness, a little bread on one hand, trouble on the other,—all this will support me.


It is all the same to me,


Just feel how hot my hands are!


What splendid hair!


How much will you give me for it?


Ten francs.


Cut it off. My child is no longer cold. I have clothed her with my hair.


There’s a girl who will come to a bad end.


When I get rich, I will have my Cosette with me; Ah! they are good! Forty francs! the idea! That makes two napoleons! Where do they think I am to get them? These peasants are stupid, truly.


What makes you so gay?


A fine piece of stupidity that some country people have written to me. They demand forty francs of me. So much for you, you peasants!


You have beautiful teeth, you girl there, who are laughing; if you want to sell me your palettes, I will give you a gold napoleon apiece for them.


What are my palettes?


The palettes, are the front teeth, the two upper ones.


How horrible!


Two napoleons! Here’s a lucky girl!


Reflect, my beauty! two napoleons; they may prove of service. If your heart bids you, come this evening to the inn of the Tillac d’Argent; you will find me there.


Can you understand such a thing? Is he not an abominable man? How can they allow such people to go about the country! Pull out my two front teeth! Why, I should be horrible! My hair will grow again, but my teeth! Ah! what a monster of a man! I should prefer to throw myself head first on the pavement from the fifth story! He told me that he should be at the Tillac d’Argent this evening.


And what did he offer?


Two napoleons.


That makes forty francs.


Yes, that makes forty francs. What is a miliary fever? Do you know?


Yes, it is a disease.


Does it require many drugs?


Oh! terrible drugs.


How does one get it?


It is a malady that one gets without knowing how.


Then it attacks children?


Children in particular.


Do people die of it?


They may,


Lord! the candle is all burned out! Something has happened. Jesus! what is the matter with you, Fantine?


Nothing. Quite the contrary. My child will not die of that frightful malady, for lack of succor. I am content.


Ah! Jesus God! Why, it is a fortune! Where did you get those louis d’or?


I got them,


Come! let us sell what is left.


How ugly you are!—Will you get out of my sight?—You have no teeth!


Follow me!


Take three men and conduct this creature to jail. You are to have six months of it.


Six months! six months of prison! Six months in which to earn seven sous a day! But what will become of Cosette? My daughter! my daughter! But I still owe the Thénardiers over a hundred francs; do you know that, Monsieur Inspector? Monsieur Javert. I beseech your mercy. I assure you that I was not in the wrong. If you had seen the beginning, you would have seen. I swear to you by the good God that I was not to blame! That gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has any one the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along peaceably, and doing no harm to any one? I am rather ill, as you see. And then, he had been saying impertinent things to me for a long time: ‘You are ugly! you have no teeth!’ I know well that I have no longer those teeth. I did nothing; I said to myself, ‘The gentleman is amusing himself.’ I was honest with him; I did not speak to him. It was at that moment that he put the snow down my back. Monsieur Javert, good Monsieur Inspector! is there not some person here who saw it and can tell you that this is quite true? Perhaps I did wrong to get angry. You know that one is not master of one’s self at the first moment. One gives way to vivacity; and then, when some one puts something cold down your back just when you are not expecting it! I did wrong to spoil that gentleman’s hat. Why did he go away? I would ask his pardon. Oh, my God! It makes no difference to me whether I ask his pardon. Do me the favor to-day, for this once, Monsieur Javert. Hold! you do not know that in prison one can earn only seven sous a day; it is not the government’s fault, but seven sous is one’s earnings; and just fancy, I must pay one hundred francs, or my little girl will be sent to me. Oh, my God! I cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile! Oh, my Cosette! Oh, my little angel of the Holy Virgin! what will become of her, poor creature? I will tell you: it is the Thénardiers, inn-keepers, peasants; and such people are unreasonable. They want money. Don’t put me in prison! You see, there is a little girl who will be turned out into the street to get along as best she may, in the very heart of the winter; and you must have pity on such a being, my good Monsieur Javert. If she were older, she might earn her living; but it cannot be done at that age. I am not a bad woman at bottom. It is not cowardliness and gluttony that have made me what I am. If I have drunk brandy, it was out of misery. I do not love it; but it benumbs the senses. When I was happy, it was only necessary to glance into my closets, and it would have been evident that I was not a coquettish and untidy woman. I had linen, a great deal of linen. Have pity on me, Monsieur Javert!


Come! I have heard you out. Have you entirely finished? You will get six months. Now march! The Eternal Father in person could do nothing more.


Mercy!


One moment, if you please.


Excuse me, Mr. Mayor—


Ah! so it is you who are M. le Maire!


Inspector Javert, set this woman at liberty.


At liberty! I am to be allowed to go! I am not to go to prison for six months! Who said that? It is not possible that any one could have said that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a mayor! Was it you, my good Monsieur Javert, who said that I was to be set free? Oh, see here! I will tell you about it, and you will let me go. That monster of a mayor, that old blackguard of a mayor, is the cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all because of a pack of rascally women, who gossip in the workroom. If that is not a horror, what is? To dismiss a poor girl who is doing her work honestly! Then I could no longer earn enough, and all this misery followed. In the first place, there is one improvement which these gentlemen of the police ought to make, and that is, to prevent prison contractors from wronging poor people. I will explain it to you, you see: you are earning twelve sous at shirt-making, the price falls to nine sous; and it is not enough to live on. Then one has to become whatever one can. As for me, I had my little Cosette, and I was actually forced to become a bad woman. Now you understand how it is that that blackguard of a mayor caused all the mischief. After that I stamped on that gentleman’s hat in front of the officers’ café; but he had spoiled my whole dress with snow. We women have but one silk dress for evening wear. You see that I did not do wrong deliberately—truly, Monsieur Javert; and everywhere I behold women who are far more wicked than I, and who are much happier. O Monsieur Javert! it was you who gave orders that I am to be set free, was it not? Make inquiries, speak to my landlord; I am paying my rent now; they will tell you that I am perfectly honest. Ah! my God! I beg your pardon; I have unintentionally touched the damper of the stove, and it has made it smoke.


How much did you say that you owed?


Was I speaking to you? Say, you fellows, did you see how I spit in his face? Ah! you old wretch of a mayor, you came here to frighten me, but I’m not afraid of you. I am afraid of Monsieur Javert. I am afraid of my good Monsieur Javert! And yet, you see, Mr. Inspector, it is necessary to be just. I understand that you are just, Mr. Inspector; in fact, it is perfectly simple: a man amuses himself by putting snow down a woman’s back, and that makes the officers laugh; one must divert themselves in some way; and we—well, we are here for them to amuse themselves with, of course! And then, you, you come; you are certainly obliged to preserve order, you lead off the woman who is in the wrong; but on reflection, since you are a good man, you say that I am to be set at liberty; it is for the sake of the little one, for six months in prison would prevent my supporting my child. ‘Only, don’t do it again, you hussy!’ Oh! I won’t do it again, Monsieur Javert! They may do whatever they please to me now; I will not stir. But to-day, you see, I cried because it hurt me. I was not expecting that snow from the gentleman at all; and then as I told you, I am not well; I have a cough; I seem to have a burning ball in my stomach, and the doctor tells me, ‘Take care of yourself.’ Here, feel, give me your hand; don’t be afraid—it is here. Children, Monsieur l’Inspecteur has said that I am to be released, and I am going.


Sergeant! don’t you see that that jade is walking off! Who bade you let her go?


I,


Mr. Mayor, that cannot be.


Why not?


This miserable woman has insulted a citizen.


Inspector Javert, listen. You are an honest man, and I feel no hesitation in explaining matters to you. Here is the true state of the case: I was passing through the square just as you were leading this woman away; there were still groups of people standing about, and I made inquiries and learned everything; it was the townsman who was in the wrong and who should have been arrested by properly conducted police.


This wretch has just insulted Monsieur le Maire.


That concerns me. My own insult belongs to me, I think. I can do what I please about it.


I beg Monsieur le Maire’s pardon. The insult is not to him but to the law.


Inspector Javert, the highest law is conscience. I have heard this woman; I know what I am doing.


And I, Mr. Mayor, do not know what I see.


Then content yourself with obeying.


I am obeying my duty. My duty demands that this woman shall serve six months in prison.


Heed this well; she will not serve a single day.


I am sorry to oppose Monsieur le Maire; it is for the first time in my life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my authority. I confine myself, since Monsieur le Maire desires it, to the question of the gentleman. I was present. This woman flung herself on Monsieur Bamatabois, who is an elector and the proprietor of that handsome house with a balcony, which forms the corner of the esplanade, three stories high and entirely of cut stone. Such things as there are in the world! In any case, Monsieur le Maire, this is a question of police regulations in the streets, and concerns me, and I shall detain this woman Fantine.


The matter to which you refer is one connected with the municipal police. According to the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and sixty-six of the code of criminal examination, I am the judge. I order that this woman shall be set at liberty.


But, Mr. Mayor—


I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of the 13th of December, 1799, in regard to arbitrary detention.


Monsieur le Maire, permit me—


Not another word.


But—


Leave the room,


I have heard you. I knew nothing about what you have mentioned. I believe that it is true, and I feel that it is true. I was even ignorant of the fact that you had left my shop. Why did you not apply to me? But here; I will pay your debts, I will send for your child, or you shall go to her. You shall live here, in Paris, or where you please. I undertake the care of your child and yourself. You shall not work any longer if you do not like. I will give all the money you require. You shall be honest and happy once more. And listen! I declare to you that if all is as you say,—and I do not doubt it,—you have never ceased to be virtuous and holy in the sight of God. Oh! poor woman.


Oh! Oh! Oh!


What are you doing?


How do you feel?


Well, I have slept. I think that I am better. It is nothing.


I was praying to the martyr there on high. You have suffered much, poor mother. Oh! do not complain; you now have the dowry of the elect. It is thus that men are transformed into angels. It is not their fault they do not know how to go to work otherwise. You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the first form of heaven. It was necessary to begin there.


The devil! don’t let’s allow the child to go. This lark is going to turn into a milch cow. I see through it. Some ninny has taken a fancy to the mother.


Christi! let’s not give up the child.


I have been a sinner; but when I have my child beside me, it will be a sign that God has pardoned me. While I was leading a bad life, I should not have liked to have my Cosette with me; I could not have borne her sad, astonished eyes. It was for her sake that I did evil, and that is why God pardons me. I shall feel the benediction of the good God when Cosette is here. I shall gaze at her; it will do me good to see that innocent creature. She knows nothing at all. She is an angel, you see, my sisters. At that age the wings have not fallen off. Shall I see my Cosette soon?


To-morrow, perhaps. She may arrive at any moment. I am expecting her.


Oh! how happy I am going to be!


Well?


Has she not a child which she desires to see?


Yes.


Well! Make haste and get it here!


What did the doctor say?


He said that your child was to be brought speedily. That that would restore your health.


Oh! he is right! But what do those Thénardiers mean by keeping my Cosette from me! Oh! she is coming. At last I behold happiness close beside me!


I shall send some one to fetch Cosette! If necessary, I will go myself. MONSIEUR THÉNARDIER:— You will deliver Cosette to this person. You will be paid for all the little things. I have the honor to salute you with respect. FANTINE.


Admit him,


Well! What is it? What is the matter, Javert?


This is the matter, Mr. Mayor; a culpable act has been committed.


What act?


An inferior agent of the authorities has failed in respect, and in the gravest manner, towards a magistrate. I have come to bring the fact to your knowledge, as it is my duty to do.


Who is the agent?


I,


You?


I.


And who is the magistrate who has reason to complain of the agent?