 Chapter 2 of Book 7 of L'Émiserable Vol. 4 by Victor Ullgo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Algi Pug. L'Émiserable Vol. 4 by Victor Ullgo. Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood. Book 7, Slang, Chapter 2 Chapter 2, Roots Slang is the tongue of those who sit in darkness. Thought is moved in its most somber depths. Social philosophy is bidden to its most poignant meditations in the presence of that enigmatic dialect at once so blighted and rebellious. Therein lies chastisement made visible. Every syllable has an air of being marked. The words of the vulgar tongue appear therein wrinkled and shriveled, as it were, beneath the hot iron of the executioner. Some seem to be still smoking. Such and such a phrase produces upon you the effect of a shoulder of a thief branded with the flurred leaves which has suddenly been laid bare. Ideas almost refuse to be expressed in these substantives which are fugitives from justice. Metaphor is sometimes so shameless that one feels that it has worn the iron neck-fitter. Moreover, in spite of all its, and because of all its, this strange dialect has by rights its own compartment in that great impartial case of pigeonholes where there is room for the rusty farthing as well as for the gold metal, and which is called literature. Slang, whether the public admit the fact or not, has its syntax and its poetry. It is a language. Yes, by the deformity of certain terms, we recognize the fact that it was chewed by Mandra, and by the splendor of certain metonomies, we feel that Vion spoke it. That exquisite and celebrated verse, mi uson le neige dans ton, but where are the snows of years gone by is a verse of slang. Ante anum is a word of tune slang which signified the past year, and by extension, formally. Thirty-five years ago, at the epoch of the departure of the Great Chain Gang, there could be read in one of the cells at Bichetra this maxim ingrained with a nail on the wall by a king of tune condemned to the galleys. Le dobe dans ton trimé s'y en prie pour la pierre de serre. This means kings in days gone by always went and had themselves anointed. In the opinion of that king, anointment meant the galleys. The word décarade, which expresses the departure of heavy vehicles at a gallop, is attributed to Vion, and it is worthy of him. This word, which strikes fire with all four of its feet, sums up, in embarrassingly on a matter-pire, the whole of Lafontaine's admirable verse, s'y four chevaux tirés au cos, six stout horses drew a coach. From a purely literary point of view, few studies would prove more curious and fruitful than the study of slang. It is a whole language within a language, a sort of sickly expressance, an unhealthy graft which is produced of vegetation, a parasite which has its roots in the old Gallic trunk and whose sinister foliage crawls all over one side of the language. This is what may be called the first, the vulgar aspect of slang. But for those who study the tongue as it should be studied, that is to say, as geologists study the earth, slang appears like a veritable alluvial deposit. According as one digs a longer or shorter distance into it, one finds in slang below the old popular French, Provencal, Spanish, Italian, Levantine, that language the Mediterranean ports, English and German, the Romance language in its three varieties, French, Italian and Romance, Romance, Latin and finally Basque and Celtic, a profound and unique formation, a subterranean edifice erected in common by all the miserable. Each accursed race has deposited its layer, each suffering has dropped its stone there, each heart has contributed its pebble, a throng of evil, base or irritated souls who have traversed life and have vanished into eternity, linger there almost entirely visible, still beneath the form of some monstrous word. Do you want Spanish? The old Gothic slang abounded in it. Here is Boffet, a box on the ear which is derived from Boffeton, Vonton, window, later on Vontain which comes from Vantana, Gatt, cat, which comes from Gattor, Acet, oil which comes from Acet. Do you want Italian? Here is Spade, sword which comes from Spada, Carville, boat which comes from Carvella. Do you want English? Here is Bichot, which comes from Bishop, Raya, spy which comes from Rascal, Rascallion, Pilsch, a case which comes from Pilcher, a sheath. Do you want German? Here is the Couleur, the waiter, Kellner, the hills, the master, Herzog, Duke. Do you want Latin? Here is Fongile, to break, Frangere, a furé, to steal, furre. Caden, chain, cadena. There is one word which crops up in every language of the continent with the sort of mysterious power and authority. It is the word Manus. The Scotchman makes of it his Mac and designates the chief of the clan McFarlane, McCullamore, the great Farlane, the great Cullamore. Slang turns it into Mech, and later Le Mech. That is to say, God. Would you like Basque? Here is Cajisto, the devil which comes from Gate Store, Evil, Saul Gabon, Good Night which comes from Gabon, Good Evening. Do you want Celtic? Here is Blavain, a handkerchief which comes from Blavé, gushing water. Menace, a woman in a bad sense which comes from Maynick, full of stones. Baran, brook, which comes from Baranton. Fountain, Goffeur, locksmith, from Goff, blacksmith. Gouders, death, which comes from Gondoux, black, white. Finally, would you like history? Slang calls crowns Lermotez, a souvenir of the coin in circulation on the galleys of Malta. In addition to the philological origins just indicated, Slang possesses other and still more natural roots which spring, so to speak, from the mind of man itself. In the first place, the direct creation of words. Therein lies the mystery of tongues. To paint with words which contains figures one knows not how or why, is a primitive foundation of all human languages, what may be called their granite. Slang abounds in words of this description, immediate words. Words created instantaneously no one knows either where or by whom, without entomology, without analogies, without derivatives, solitary, barbarous, sometimes hideous words which at times possess a singular power, an expression, and which live. The executioner, the toy, the forest, the sabri, fear, flight, tough, the lackey, the larban, the mineral, the prefect, the minister, faros, the devil, the raban. Nothing is stranger than these words which both mask and reveal. Some, the raban, for example, are at the same time grotesque and terrible and produce on you the effect of a cyclopean grimace. In the second place, metaphor. The peculiarity of a language which is desirous of saying all, yet concealing all, is that it is rich in figures. Metaphor is an enigma wherein the thief who is plotting a stroke, the prisoner who is arranging an escape, take refuge. No idiom is more metaphorical than slang. Debussy le coco. To unscrew the nut, to twist the neck, tortiller, to wriggle, to eat. It's reserved to be tried. A rat, a breath-thief, a long skin, it rains. A striking ancient figure which partly bears its date about it, which assimilates long oblique lines of rain with the dense and slanting pikes of the lances and which compresses into a single word the popular expression, it rains halberds. Sometimes in proportion a slang progresses from the first epoch to the second, words pass from the primitive and savage sense to the metaphorical sense. The devil ceases to be la raboin and becomes le boulanger, the baker who puts the bread into the oven. This is more witty but less grand, something like racine after cornet, like urippides after escalis. Certain slang phrases which participate in the two epochs and have at once the barbaric character and the metaphorical character resemble phantasma-gories. The Chaugerais vont solliciter des gars à la lune. The prowlers are going to steal horses by night. This passes before the mind like a group of spectres. One knows not what one sees. In the third place, the expedient. The language lives on the language. It uses it in accordance with its fancy. It dips into it haphazard and it often confines itself when occasion arises to alter it in a gross and summary fashion. Occasionally, with the ordinary words thus deformed and complicated with words of pure slang, picturesque phrases are formed in which there can be felt the mixture of the two preceding elements, the direct creation and the metaphor. The Kab-Jaspim Je marron qu'est la rouleau de pantons crème dans les sabris. The dog is barking. I suspect that the diligence for Paris is passing through the woods. Le dog est sangre. Le d'abouge est le mericiel. Le fait est motif. The bourgeois is stupid. Bourgeoisie is cunning. The daughter is pretty. Generally, to throw listeners off the track, slang confines itself to adding all the words of the language without distinction. An ignoble tale. A termination in ayre, ork, yerk, or in yush. Thus, do you think that leg of mutton good a phrase addressed by cartouche to a turnkey in order to find out whether the sum offered for his escape suited him. The termination in mar has been added recently. Slang, being the dialect of corruption, quickly becomes corrupted itself. Besides this, as it is always seeking concealment, as soon as it feels that it is understood, it changes its form. Contrary to what happens with every other vegetation, every ray of light which falls upon it, kills whatever it touches. Thus slang is in constant process of decomposition and recomposition. An obscure and rapid work which never pauses. It passes over more ground in ten years than a language in ten centuries. Thus, the latour bread becomes the latif. The gay horse becomes the gay. La fiertorche, straw becomes la fiertie. La momignarde, brat. La momarque. La fique, duds, chrusque. La chique, le church, le grouchoir. Le colabre, nec, le colà. The devil is at first kechisto, then la rabouin. Then the baker. The priest is a raticion. Then the boar, le sanglier. The dagger is the vendu, 22. Then le serin, then le langre. The police are rye, then roussin, then roussé, then machon de la sé, dealers in stale aces, then coqueur, then corne. The executioner is le tolle, then charlot, la tigeur, then le backyard. In the 17th century, to fight was to give each other snuff. In the 19th, it is to chew each other's throats. There have been twenty different phrases between these two extremes. Cartouche's talk would have been Hebrew to La Sénère. All the words of this language are perpetually engaged in flight, like the men who utter them. Still, from time to time, and in consequence of this very movement, the ancient slang crops up again and becomes new once more. It has its headquarters where it maintains its sway. The temple preserved the slang of the 17th century, which, when it was a prison, preserved the slang of Thune. There one could hear the termination in Anche of the old Thuneurs. Buanche, too. Do you drink? The perpetual movement remains its law nevertheless. If the philosopher succeeds in fixing, for a moment, for purposes of observation this language which is incessantly evaporating, he falls into hopeful and useful meditation. No study is more efficacious and more frequent in instruction. There is not a metaphor, not an analogy in slang which does not contain a lesson. Among these men, to beat means to feign. One beats a melody. Ruse is their strength. For them, the idea of the man is not separated from the idea of darkness. Lassorg, man, log. Man is a derivative of the night. They have taken up the practice of considering society in the light of an atmosphere which kills them of a fatal force. And they speak of their liberty as one would speak of his health. A man under arrest is a sick man. A man who is condemned is a dead man. The most terrible thing for the prisoner within the four walls in which is a sort of glacial chastity and he calls the dungeon the castus. In that funereal place life outside always presents itself under its most smiling aspect. The prisoner has irons on his feet. You think, perhaps, that his thought is that it is with the feet that one walks. No. He is thinking that it is with the feet that one dances. So, when he has succeeded in severing his senses, his first idea is that now he can dance. And he calls the sore the bastrang public house ball. A name is a center profound assimilation. The ruffian has two heads one of which reasons out his actions and leads him all his life long and the other which he has upon his shoulders on the day of his death. He calls the head which counsels him in crime la sorbonne which expiates it la tranche. When a man has no longer anything but rags upon his body and vices in his heart when he has arrived at that double moral and material degradation which the word blaggard characterizes in its two acceptations he is ripe for crime he is like a well-wetted knife he has two cutting edges his distress and his malice. So, slang does not say a blaggard it says what are the galleys a brazier of damnation a hell the convict calls himself a faggot and finally what the name do malifactors give to their prison the college a whole penitentiary system can be evolved from that word. Does the reader wish to know where the majority of the songs of the galleys those refrains called in a special vocabulary have had their birth? Let him listen to what follows there existed at the Châtelet in Paris a large and long cellar. This cellar was eight feet below the level of the Seine it had neither windows nor air holes its only aperture was the door men could enter there air could not this vault had for ceiling a vault of stone and for floor ten inches of mud it was flagged but the pavement had rotted and cracked under the oozing of the water eight feet above the floor a long and massive beam traversed this subterranean excavation from side to side from this beam hung a short distance apart changed three feet long and at the end of these chains there were rings for the neck in this vault men who had been condemned to the galleys were incarcerated until the day of their departure for too long they were thrust under this beam for each one found his fetters swinging in the darkness and waiting for him the chains those pendant arms and the necklets those open hands caught the unhappy wretches by the throat they were riveted and left there as the chain was too short they could not lie down they remained motionless in that cabin in that night beneath that beam almost hanging heard of efforts to reach their bread jug or their vault overhead mud even to mid leg filth flowing to their very calves broken asunder with fatigue with thighs and knees giving way clinging fast to the chain with their hands in order to obtain some rest unable to sleep except when standing erect and awakened every moment by the strangling of the collar some woke no more in order to eat they pushed the bread which was flung to them in the mud along their leg with their heel until it reached their hand how long did they remain thus one month, two months six months sometimes one state a year it was the anti chamber of the galleys men were put there for stealing a hair from the king in this sepulchre hell what did they do what man can do in a sepulchre with the agonies of death and what can man do in hell they sang for song lingers where there is no longer any hope in the waters of Malta when a galley was approaching the song could be heard before the sound of the oars poor Suravanson the poacher who had gone through the prison cellar of the Châtelet said it was the rhymes that kept me up uselessness of poetry what is the good of rhyme it is in this cellar that nearly all the slang songs had their birth it is from the dungeon of the Grand Châtelet of Paris that comes a melancholy refrain of the Montgomery Galley Timalumissan Timalumisson the majority of these Isicaé and La Théâtre Dupétis d'Arnaud here is the theatre of the little archer Cupid do what you will to highlight that eternal relic in the heart of man love in this world of dismal deeds people keep their secrets the secret is the thing above all others the secret in the eyes of these wretches is unity which serves as a base of union to betray a secret is to tear from each member of this fierce community something of his own personality to inform against is called to eat the bit as though each informer drew to himself a little of the substance of all and nourished himself on a bit of each one's flesh what does it signify to receive a box on the ear commonplace metaphor replies it is to see 36 candles here slang intervenes and takes it up candle, camoufle thereupon the ordinary tongue gives camoufle as the synonym for souffle thus by a sort of infiltration from below upwards with the aid of metaphor that incalculable trajectory slang melts from the cavern to the academy and Poulère saying I like my camoufle causes Voltaire to write Longlivier-Labomille deserves a hundred camoufle researchers in slang mean discoveries at every step study and investigation of this strange idiom lead to the mysterious point of intersection of regular society with society which is a cursed the thief also has his food for cannon stealable matter you, I, whoever passes by le pan, pan, everybody slang is language turned to convict that the thinking principle of man be thrust down ever so low that it can be dragged and pinioned there by obscure tyrannies of fatality that it can be bound by no one knows what fetters in that abyss is sufficient to cause consternation oh poor thought of miserable wretches alas, will no one come to the sucker of the human soul in that darkness is it her destiny there to await forever the mind the liberator the immense rider of pegacy and hippogriffs, the combatant heroes of the dawn who shall descend from the asia between two wings the radiant night of the future will she forever summon in vain to her assistance the lance of light of the ideal here she condemned to hear the fearful approach of evil through the density of the gulf and to catch glimpses nearer and nearer at hand beneath the hideous water of that dragon's head that moor streaked with fern in that writhing undulation of claws, swellings and rings must it remain there without a gleam of light without hope given over to that terrible approach vaguely scented out by the monster shuttering, dishevelled ringing its arms for ever chained to the rock of night a somber andromeda white and naked amid the shadows End of Book 7 Chapter 2 Recording by Algy Pug Perth, Western Australia Chapters 3 and 4 of Book 7 of Les Miserables Volume 4 by Victor Ugo This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Algy Pug Les Miserables Volume 4 by Victor Ugo Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood Book 7 Slang Chapters 3 and 4 Chapter 3 Slang which weeps and slang which laughs As the reader perceives slang in its entirety slang of 400 years ago like the slang of today is permeated with that somber symbolical spirit which gives to all words a mean which is now mournful now menacing. One feels in it the wild and ancient sadness of those vagrants of the court of miracles who played at cards with packs of their own some of which have come down to us The eight of clubs, for instance represented a huge tree bearing eight enormous tree-foil leaves a sort of fantastic personification of the forest At the foot of this tree fire was burning over which three hairs were roasting a huntsman on a spit and behind him, on another fire hung a stemming pot whence emerged the head of a dog Nothing can be more melancholy than these reprisals in painting by a pack of cards in the presence of steaks for the roasting of smugglers and of the cauldron for the boiling of counterfeiters The diverse forms assumed by thought in a realm of slang even railery even menace all partook of this powerless and dejected character All the songs the melodies of some of which have been collected were humble and lamentable to the point of evoking tears The peggler is always the poor peggler and he is always the hair in hiding the fugitive mouse the flying bird He hardly complains He contents himself with sighing One of his moans has come down to us I do not understand how God the father of men could torture his children and his grandchildren and hear them cry without himself suffering torture The rich whenever he has time to think makes himself small before the low and frail in the presence of society He lies down flat on his face He entreats He appeals to the side of compassion We feel that he is conscious of his guilt Towards the middle of the last century a change took place Prison songs and thieves Ritonell's assumed, so to speak an insolent and jovial mean The plaint of Malur was replaced by the Larifla We find in the 18th century in nearly all the songs of the galleys and prisons are diabolical and enigmatic or gaiety We hear this strident and lilting refrain which we should say had been lighted up by a phosphorescent gleam and which seems to have been flung into the forest by a will of the wisp playing the fife Mira la bi, sous la babo Mira liton, ribon ribet sous la babi, Mira la babo Mira liton, ribon ribo This was sung in the cellar or in a nook of the forest while cutting a man's throat A serious symptom in the 18th century the ancient melancholy of the dejected classes vanishes They began to laugh They rallied the grand meag and the grand dobb Given Louis XV they called the king of France Le Marquis de Panteur And behold, they are almost gay A sort of gleam proceeds from these miserable wretches as though their consciences were not heavy within them anymore These lamentable tribes of darkness have no longer merely the desperate audacity of actions They possess the heedless audacity of mind A sign that they are losing the sense of their criminality and that they feel, even among thinkers and dreamers, some indefinable support which the latter themselves know not of A sign that theft and pillage are beginning to filter into doctrines and sophisms in such a way as to lose somewhat of their ugliness while communicating much of it to sophisms and doctrines A sign, in short which is prodigious and near unless some diversion shall arise Let us pause a moment Whom are we accusing here? Is it the 18th century? Is it philosophy? Certainly not The work of the 18th century is healthy and good and wholesome The encyclopedists did it all at their head The physiocrats tour a goal at their head The philosophers Voltaire at their head The utopians Rousseau at their head These are four sacred legions Humanity's immense advance towards the light is due to them They are the four vanguards of the human race marching towards the four cardinal points of progress Diderot towards the beautiful Tour a goal towards the useful Voltaire towards the true Rousseau towards the just But by the side of and above the philosophers there were the Sophists A venomous vegetation mingled with a healthy growth hemlock in the virgin forest While the executioner was burning the great books of the liberators of the century on the grand staircase of the courthouse Writers now forgotten were publishing with the king's sanction no one knows what strangely disorganizing writings which were eagerly read by the unfortunate Some of these publications odd to say which were patronized by a prince are to be found in the secret library These facts significant but unknown were imperceptible on the surface Sometimes in the very obscurity of a fact lurks its danger It is obscure because it is underhand Of all these writers the one who probably then excavated in the masses the most unhealthy gallery was Restif a la Breton This work peculiar to the whole of Europe affected more ravages in Germany than anywhere else In Germany during a given period Summed up by Schiller in his famous drama The Robbers theft and pillage rose up in protest against property and labour assimilated certain species and false elementary ideas which though just in appearance were observed in reality enveloped themselves in these ideas disappeared within them after a fashion assumed an abstract name passed into the state of theory and in that shape circulated among the laborious suffering and honest masses unknown even to the imprudent chemists who had prepared the mixture unknown even to the masses who accepted it whenever a fact of this sort presents itself the case is grave suffering engenders Roth and while a prosperous classes or fall asleep which is the same thing as shutting one's eyes the hatred of the unfortunate classes lights its torch at some aggrieved or ill-made spirit which dreams in a corner and sets itself to the scrutiny of society the scrutiny of hatred is a terrible thing hence if the ill-fortune of the times so wills it those fearful commotions which were formerly called jacarys beside which purely political agitations are the nearest child's play which are no longer the conflict of the oppressed and the oppressor but the revolt of this comfort against comfort then everything crumbles jacarys are the earthquakes of the people it is this peril possibly imminent towards the close of the 18th century which the French Revolution that immense act of probity cut short the French Revolution the idea armed with the sword rose erect and with the same abrupt movement closed the door of ill and opened the door of good it put a stop to torture promulgated the truth expelled miasma rendered the century healthy crowned the populace it may be said of it that it created man a second time by giving him a second soul the right and today the social catastrophe to which we lately alluded is simply impossible blind is he who announces it foolish is he who fears it revolution is the vaccine of jacarys thanks to the revolution social conditions have changed feudal and monarchical maladies no longer run in our blood there is no more of the middle ages in our constitution we no longer live in the days within made eruptions when one heard beneath his feet the obscure course of a dull rumble when indescribable elevations from mole like tunnels appeared on the surface of civilization where the soil cracked open where the roofs of caverns yawned and where one suddenly beheld monstrous heads emerging from the earth the revolutionary sense is a moral sense the sentiment of right once developed develops the sentiment of duty the law of all is liberty which ends where the liberty of others begin according to roves pierre's admiral definition since 89 the whole people has been dilating into a sublime individual there is not a poor man who possessing his right has not his ray of sun the die of hunger feels within him the honesty of france the dignity of the citizen the eternal armor he who is free is scrupulous he who votes reigns hence incorruptibility hence the miscarriage of unhealthy lusts hence eyes heroically lowered before temptations the revolutionary wholesomeness is such that on a day of deliverance a 14th of july a 10th of august there is no longer any populace the first cry of the enlightened and increasing throngs is death to thieves progress is an honest man the ideal and the absolute do not filch pocket handkerchiefs by whom were the wagons containing the wealth of the toileries escorted in 1848 by the rag pickers of the forebore son Antoine rags mounted guard over the treasure virtue rendered these tattered amalians resplendent in those wagons in chests hardly closed and some even half open amid a hundred dazzling caskets was that ancient crown of France studded with diamonds surmounted by the carbuncle of royalty by the regent diamond which was worth 30 millions barefooted they guarded that crown hence no more jacquery I regret it for the sake of the skillful the old fear has produced its last effects in that quarter and henceforth to no longer be employed in politics the principal spring of the red spectre is broken everyone knows it now the scarecrow scares no longer the birds take liberty with the mannequin foul creatures alight upon it the bourgeois laugh at it Chapter 4 the two duties to watch and to hope this being the case is all social danger dispelled? certainly not there is no jacquery society may rest assured on that point blood will no longer rush to its head but let society take heed to the manner in which it breathes apoplexy is no longer to be feared but the thesis is there social thesis is called misery one can perish from being undermined as well as from being struck by lightning let us not weary of repeating our goals must not forget that this is the first of fraternal obligations and selfish hearts must understand that the first are political necessities consists in thinking first of all of the disinherited and sorrowing throngs in solacing, airing enlightening, loving them and enlarging their horizon to a magnificent extent in lavishing upon them education in every form in offering them the example of labour the example of idleness in diminishing the individual burden by enlarging the notion of the universal aim in setting a limit to poverty without setting a limit to wealth, in creating vast fields of public and popular activity in having, like Priaris a hundred hands to extend in all directions to the oppressed and the feeble and employing the collective power for that grand duty of opening workshops for all arms schools for all aptitudes and laboratories for all degrees of intelligence in augmenting salaries diminishing trouble balancing what should be and what is they used to say in proportioning enjoyment to effort and a glut to need in a word, in evolving from the social apparatus more light and more comfort for the benefit of those who suffer and to those who are ignorant and let us say it all this is but the beginning the true question is this labour cannot be a law without being a right we will not insist on this point this is not the proper place for that if nature calls itself providence society should call itself foresight intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable and material improvement to know is a sacrament to think is the prime necessity truth is nourishment of grain a reason which fasts from science and wisdom grows thin let us enter equal complaint against stomachs and minds which do not eat if there is anything more heart breaking than a body perishing for lack of bread it is the soul which is dying from hunger for the light the whole progress tends in the direction of solution someday we shall be amazed as the human race mounts upward the deep layers emerge naturally from the zone of distress the obliteration of misery will be accomplished by a simple elevation of level we should do wrong were we to doubt this blessed consummation the past is very strong it is true at the present moment it censures this rejuvenation of a corpse is surprising behold it is walking and advancing it seems a victor this dead body is a conqueror it seems superstitions with his sword despotism with his banner ignorance a while ago he won 10 battles he advances he threatens he laughs he is at our doors let us not despair on our side let us sell the field on which Hannibal is encamped what have we to fear we who believe no such thing as a back flow of ideas exists anymore exists a return of a river on its course but let those who do not desire a future reflect on this matter when they say no to progress it is not the future but themselves that they are condemning they are giving themselves a sad melody they are inoculating themselves with the past there is but one way of rejecting tomorrow and that is to die now no death that of the body as late as possible that of the soul never this is what we desire yes the enigma will utter its word the sphinx will speak the problem will be solved yes the people sketched out by the 18th century will be finished by the 19th he who doubts this is an idiot the future blossoming the near blossoming fourth of universal wellbeing is a divinely fatal phenomenon immense combined propulsions direct human affairs and conduct them within a given time to a logical state that is to say to a state of equilibrium that is to say to equity a force composed of earth and heaven results from humanity and governs it this force is a worker of miracles marvellous issues are no more difficult to it than extraordinary vicissitudes aided by science which comes from one man and by the event which comes from another it is not greatly alarmed by these contradictions in the attitude of problems which seem impossibilities to the vulgar herd it is no less skillful at causing a solution to spring forth from the reconciliation of ideas than the lesson from the reconciliation of facts and we may expect anything from that mysterious power of progress which brought the orient and the oxidant face to face one fine day in the depth of a sepulchre and made the imams converse with bone apart in the interior of the great pyramid in the meantime let there be no halt, no hesitation no pause in the grandiose onward march of minds social philosophy consists essentially in science and peace its object is and its results may be to dissolve wrath by the study of antagonism it examines it scrutinizes, it analyzes then it puts together once more it proceeds by means of reduction discarding old hatred more than once a society has been seen to give way before the wind which is let loose upon mankind history is full of the shipwrecks of nations and empires manners, customs laws, religions and some fine day that unknown force, the hurricane passes by and bears them all away the civilizations of India, of Kaldia of Persia, of Syria of Egypt have disappeared one after the other why? we know not, what are the causes of these disasters? we do not know could these societies have been saved? was it their fault? did they persist in the fatal vice which destroyed them? did they commit suicide in these terrible deaths of a nation and a race? questions to which there exists no reply darkness and wraps condemn civilizations they sprung a leak then they sank we have nothing more to say and it is with a sort of terror that we look on at the bottom of that sea which is called the past behind those colossal waves at the shipwreck of those immense vessels Babylon, Nineveh Thames, Rome beneath the fearful gusts which emerge from all the mouths of the shadows but shadows are there and light is here we are not acquainted with the maladies of these ancient civilizations we do not know the infirmities of our own everywhere upon it we have the right of light we contemplate its beauties we lay bare its defects where it is ill we probe and the sickness once diagnosed the study of the cause leads to the discovery of the remedy our civilization, the work of 20 centuries is its law and its prodigy it is worth the trouble of saving it will be saved it is already much to have solaced it its enlightenment is yet another point all the labours of modern social philosophies must converge towards this point the thinker of today has a great duty to auscultate civilization we repeat that this auscultation brings encouragement it is by this persistence in encouragement that we wish to conclude these pages an austere interlude in a mournful drama beneath the social mortality we feel human imperishableness the globe does not perish because it has these wounds, craters eruptions, sulphopits here and there more because of a volcano which ejects its pus the melodies of the people do not kill man and yet anyone who follows the course of social clinics shakes his head at times the strongest the tenderest, the most logical have their hours of weakness will the future arrive it seems as though we might almost put this question when we behold so much terrible darkness melancholy face to face encounter of selfish and wretched on the part of the selfish the prejudices shadows of costly education appetite increasing through intoxication a giddiness of prosperity which dulls a fear of suffering which in some goes as far as an aversion for the suffering an implacable satisfaction the eye so swollen that it bars the soul on the side of the wretched covetousness envy, hatred of seeing others enjoy the profound impulses of the human beast towards assuaging its desires hearts full of mist sadness need, fatality impure and simple ignorance shall we continue to raise our eyes to heaven is the luminous point which we distinguish there one of those which vanish the ideal is frightful to behold thus lost in the depths small, isolated, imperceptible brilliant yet surrounded by those great black menaces monstrously heaped around it yet no more in danger than a star in the moor of the clouds End of Book 7 Chapters 3 & 4 Recording by Algy Pug Perth, Western Australia Chapter 1 of Book 8 of Lemme's Aura of the Volume 4 by Victor Hugo This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Angelica Gabriela Wilson Lemme's Aura of the Volume 4 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood Book 8 Enchantments & Desolations Chapter 1 Full Light The reader has probably understood that Eponine, having recognized through the gate the inhabitant of that Rue Plumont with her mignon had sent her had begun by keeping the Ruffians away from the Rue Plumont and had then conducted Marius Sither and that, after many days spent in ecstasy before that gate Marius, drawn on by that force which draws the iron to the magnet and a lover toward the stones of which is built the house of her whom he loves had finally entered Cosette's garden as Romeo entered the Garden of Juliet This had proved easier for him than for Romeo Romeo was obliged to scale a wall Marius had only to use a little force on one of the bars of the decrepit gate which vacillated in its rusty recess after the fashion of old people's teeth Marius was slender and readily passed through As there was never anyone in the street and as Marius never entered the garden except at night he ran no risk of being seen Beginning with that blessed and holy hour when a kiss betrothed these two souls Marius was there every evening If at that period of her existence Cosette had fallen in love with the man in the least unscrupulous or debauched she would have been lost for there are generous natures which yield themselves and Cosette was one of them One of women's magnanimities is to yield Love at the height where it is absolute is complicated with some indescribably celestial blindness of modesty But what dangers you run oh noble souls How often you give the heart and we take the body Your heart remains with you You gaze upon it in the gloom with a shutter Love has no middle course It either ruins or it saves All human destiny lies in this dilemma This dilemma, ruin or safety is set forth no more inexorably by any fatality than by love Love is life if it is not death Cradle also coffin The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart Of all the things that God has made the human heart is the one which sheds the most light alas and the most darkness God willed that Cosette's love should encounter one of the loves which save Throughout the whole of the month of May of that year 1832 there were there in every night in that poor neglected garden beneath that thicket which grew thicker and more fragrant day by day two beings composed of all chastity all innocence overflowing with all the felicity of heaven nearer to the archangels than to mankind pure honest intoxicated radiant who's shown for each other amid the shadows it seemed to Cosette that Marius had a crown and to Marius that Cosette had a nimbus they touched each other they gazed at each other they clasped each other's hands they pressed close to each other but there was a distance which they did not pass not that they respected it they did not know of its existence Marius was conscious of a barrier Cosette's innocence and Cosette of a support Marius's loyalty the first kiss had also been the last Marius since that time had not gone further than to touch Cosette's hand or her kerchief or a lock of hair with his lips for him Cosette was a perfume and not a woman he inhaled her she refused nothing and he asked nothing Cosette was happy and Marius was satisfied they lived in this ecstatic state which can be described as the dazzling of one soul by another soul it was the ineffable first embrace of two maiden souls in the ideal two swans meeting on the young floor at that hour of love an hour when the luptuousness is absolutely mute beneath the omnipotence of ecstasy Marius the pure and seraphic Marius would rather have gone to a woman of the town than have raised Cosette's robe to the height of her ankle once in the moonlight Cosette stooped to pick up something on the ground her bodice fell apart and permitted a glimpse of the beginning of her throat Marius turned away his eyes what took place between these two beings nothing they adored each other at night when they were there that garden seemed a living and sacred spot all flowers unfolded around them and sent them incense and they opened their souls and scattered them over the flowers the wanton and vigorous vegetation quivered full of strength and intoxication around these two innocents and they uttered words of love which set the trees to trembling what words were these breaths nothing more these breaths suffice to trouble to touch all nature round about magic power which we should find it difficult to understand were we to read in a book these conversations which are made to be borne away and dispersed like smoke wreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves take from these murmurs of two lovers that melody which proceeds from the soul and which accompanies them like a lear and what remains is nothing more than a shade you say what is that all ah yes childish prattle repetitions laughter at nothing nonsense everything that is deepest and most sublime in the world the only things which are worth the trouble of saying and hearing the man who has never heard the man who has never uttered these absurdities these sultry marks is an imbecile and a malicious fellow Cosette said to Marius D'ostes alors? in all this and a thwart this celestial maidenliness and without either of them being able to say how it had come about they had begun to call each other D'ostes alors non? my name is Euphraezie Euphraezie? why no? thy name is Cosette oh Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was a little thing but my real name is Euphraezie D'ostes alors like that name Euphraezie yes but Cosette is not ugly do you like it better than Euphraezie? well yes then I like it better too truly it is pretty Cosette call me Cosette and the smile that she added made of this dialogue an idol worthy of the grove situated in heaven on another occasion she gazed intently at him and exclaimed Monsieur you are handsome you are good looking, you are witty you are not at all stupid you are much more lunatic than I am but I bid you defiance with this world I love you and Marius in the very heavens thought he heard a strange sound by a star or she bestowed on him this gentle tap because he coughed and she said to him don't cough sir, I will not have people cough in my domain without my permission it is very naughty to cough and disturb me I want you to be well because in the first place if you are not well I should be very unhappy what should I do then? and this was simply divine once Marius said to Cosette imagine, I thought at one time that your name was Ursula this made the both of them laugh the whole evening in the middle of another conversation he chanced to exclaim oh, one day, on Zillaxanburg I had a good mind to finish breaking up a veteran but he stopped short and went no further he would have been obliged to speak to Cosette of her garter and that was impossible this bordered on a strange theme the flesh before which that immense and innocent love recoiled with a sort of sacred fright Marius pictured life with Cosette to himself like this without anything else to come every evening to the Rue Plumont to displace the old and accommodating bar of the Chief Justice's gate to sit elbow to elbow on that bench to gaze through the trees at the scintillian of the oncoming night to fit a fold of the knee of his trousers into the ample fall of Cosette's gown to caress her thumbnail to call her vow the smell of the same flower one after the other forever indefinitely during this time clouds passed above their heads every time that the wind blows it bears with it more of the dreams of men than of the clouds of heaven this chaste, almost shy love was not devoid of gallantry by any means to pay compliments to the woman whom a man loves is the first method of bestowing caresses and he is half audacious who tries it the compliment is something like a kiss through a veil the lumpchlessness mingles there with its sweet tiny point while it hides itself the heart draws back before the lumpchlessness only to love them more Marius' blandishments all saturated with fancy were, so to speak, of azure hue the birds when they fly up yonder in the direction of the angels must hear such words there were mingled with them, nevertheless life, humanity all the positiveness of which Marius was capable it was what is said in the bower a prelude to what will be said in the chamber a lyrical effusion strophan sonnet in the mingled pleasing hyperblies of cooing all the refinements of adoration arranged in a bouquet an excelling celestial perfume an ineffable twitter of heart to heart oh, murmured Marius how beautiful you are I dare not look at you all over with me when I contemplate you you are grace I know not what is the matter with me the hem of your cow when the tip of your ship is from beneath upsets me and then, what an enchanted gleam when you open your sword even but a little you talk astonishingly good sense it seems to me at all times that you are a dream speak, I listen I admire oh, Cousette, how strange it is I am really beside myself you are adorable mademoiselle I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope and Cousette answered I have been loving little more all the times that his passing this morning questions and replies to care of themselves in this dialogue which always turned with mutual consent upon love as the pith figures always turned on their peg Cousette's whole person was ingeniousness ingenuity transparency whiteness candor, radiance it might have been said of Cousette that she was clear she produced on those who saw her the sensation of April and Dawn there was dew in her eyes Cousette was a condensation of the auroral light in the form of a woman it was quite simple that Marius should admire her since he adored her but the truth is that this little schoolgirl fresh from the convent talked with exquisite penetration and uttered at times all sorts of true and delicate sayings her prattle was conversation she never made a mistake about anything and she saw things justly the woman feels and speaks with the tender instinct of the heart which is infallible no one understands so well as a woman how to say things that are at once both sweet and deep sweetness and depth they are the whole of woman in them lies the whole of heaven tears walled up in their eyes every instant a crushed ladybug a feather fallen from the nest a branch of Hawthorne broken aroused their pity and their ecstasy sweetly mingled with melancholy seemed to ask nothing better than to weep the most sovereign symptom of love is a tenderness that is at times almost unbearable in addition to this all these contradictions are the lightning play of love they were fond of laughing they laughed readily and with a delicious freedom and so familiarly that they sometimes presented the air of two boys still though unknown to hearts intoxicated with purity nature is always present and will not be forgotten she is there with her brutal and sublime object and however great may be the innocence of souls one feels in the most modest private interview the adorable and mysterious shade which separates a couple of lovers from a pair of friends they idolize each other the permanent and the immutable are persistent people live they smile they laugh they make little grimaces with the tips of their lips they interlace their fingers they call each other thou and that does not prevent eternity two lovers hide themselves in the evening in the twilight in the invisible with the birds with the roses they fascinate each other in the darkness with their hearts which they throw into their eyes they murmur and in the meantime immense liberations of the planets fill the infinite universe End of Book 8, Chapter 1 Recording by Angelica Gabriela Wilson Chapters 2 and 3 of Book 8 of Les Miserables Volume 4 by Victor Hugo This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org Recording by Joel Hermanson Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood Book 8, Chapter 2 The Bewilderment of Perfect Happiness They existed vaguely frightened at their happiness They did not notice the cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very month They had confided in each other as far as possible but this had not extended much further than their names Marius had told Cossette that he was an orphan that his name was Marius Pontmercy that he was a lawyer that he lived by writing things for publishers that his father had been a colonel that the latter had been a hero and that he, Marius was on bad terms with his grandfather who was rich He had also hinted at being a baron but this had produced no effect on Cossette She did not know the meaning of the word Marius was Marius on her side she had confided to him that she had been brought up at the petit-pictus convent that her mother, like his own was dead that her father's name was Montreux-Faulcher-Levant that he was very good that he gave a great deal to the poor but that he was poor himself and that he denied himself everything, though he denied her nothing Strange to say in the sort of symphony which Marius had lived since he had been in the habit of seeing Cossette the past, even the most recent past had become so confused and distant to him that what Cossette had told him satisfied him completely it did not even occur to him to tell her about the nocturnal adventure in the hobble about the nardier about the burn and about the strange attitude and singular flight of her father Marius had momentarily forgotten all this in the evening he did not even know that there had been a morning what he had done where he had breakfasted nor who had spoken to him he had songs in his ears left to every other thought he only existed at the hours when he saw Cossette then as he was in heaven it was quite natural that he should forget earth both bore languidly the indefinable burden of immaterial pleasures thus lived these somnambulists who were called lovers alas who is there who has not felt all these things why does there come an hour when one emerges from this azure and why does life go on afterwards love almost takes the place of thinking love is an ardent forgetfulness of all the rest then ask logic of passion if you will there is no more absolute logical sequence in the human heart than there is a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism for Cossette and Marius nothing existed except Marius and Cossette the universe around them had fallen into a hole they lived in a golden minute there was nothing before them nothing behind it hardly occurred to Marius that Cossette had a father his brain was dazzled and obliterated of what did these lovers talk then we have seen of the flowers and the swallows and the sun and the rising moon and all sorts of important things they had told each other everything except everything the everything of lovers is nothing but the father, the realities that lair, the ruffians that adventure to what purpose and was he very sure that this nightmare had actually existed they were too and they adored each other nothing, nothing else existed it is probable that this vanishing of hell in our rear is inherent to the arrival of paradise have we beheld demons are there any have we trembled, have we suffered we no longer know a rosy cloud hangs over it so these two beings lived in this manner high aloft with all that improbability and nature neither at the nadir nor the zenith between man and seraphim above the mire below the ether in the clouds hardly flesh and blood soul and ecstasy from head to foot already too sublime to walk the earth still too heavily charged with humanity to disappear in the blue suspended like atoms which are waiting to be precipitated apparently beyond the bounds of destiny ignorant of that rut yesterday, today, tomorrow amazed rapturous floating, soaring at times so light that they could take their flight out into the infinite almost prepared to soar away to all eternity they slept wide awake thus sweetly loathed oh splendid lethargy of the real overwhelm by the ideal sometimes beautiful as cassette was marius shut his eyes in her presence the best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes marius and cassette never asked themselves whether this was to lead them they considered that they had already arrived it is a strange claim on man's part to wish that love should lead to something end of chapter 2 book 8 chapter 3 the beginning of shadow Jean Valjean suspected nothing cassette who was rather less dreamy than marius was gay and that suffice for Jean Valjean's happiness the thoughts which cassette cherished her tender preoccupations marius's image which filled her heart took away nothing from the incomparable purity of her beautiful chaste and smiling brow she was at the age when the virgin bears her love as the angel is lily so Jean Valjean was at ease and then when two lovers have come to an understanding things always go well the third party who might disturb their love is kept in a state of perfect blindness by a restricted number of precautions which are always the same in the case of all lovers thus cassette never objected to any of Jean Valjean's proposals did she want to take a walk yes dear little father did she want to stay at home very good did he wish to pass the evening with cassette she was delighted as he always went to bed at 10 o'clock marius did not come to the garden on such occasions until after that hour when from the street he heard cassette a long glass door on the veranda of course no one ever met Marius in the daytime Jean Valjean never even dreamed any longer that Marius was in existence only once one morning he chanced to save to cassette why you have white wash on your back on the previous evening Marius in a transport had pushed cassette against the wall old Toussaint retired early thought of nothing but her sleep and was as ignorant as the whole matter as Jean Valjean Marius never set foot in the house when he was with cassette they hid themselves in a recess near the steps in order that they might neither be seen nor heard from the street and there they sat frequently contending themselves by way of conversation with pressing each other's hands as they gazed at the branches of the trees at such times a thunderbolt might have fallen 30 paces from them and they would not have noticed it so deeply was the reverie of one absorbed and sunk in the reverie of the other limpid purity hours holy white almost all alike this sort of love is a recollection of lily petals and the plunge of the death the whole extent of the garden lay between them and the street every time that Marius entered and left he carefully adjusted the bar of the gate in such a manner that no displacement was visible he usually went away about midnight and returned to Corphirac's lodgings Corphirac said to Bohorel would you believe it Marius comes home nowadays at one o'clock in the morning Bohorel replied what do you expect there's always a batard in a seminary fellow at times Corphirac folded his arms assumed a serious air and said to Marius you are getting irregular in your habits young man Corphirac being a practical man did not take in good part this reflection of an invisible paradise upon Marius he was not much in the light of concealed passions he made him impatient and now and then he called upon Marius to come back to reality one morning he threw him this admonition my dear fellow you produce upon me the effect of being located in the moon the realm of dreams the province of illusions, capital soap bubble come be a good boy, what's her name but nothing could induce Marius to talk they might have torn out his nails before one of the two sacred syllables of which that ineffable name Gosset was composed true love is as luminous as the dawn and as silent as the tomb only Corphirac saw this change in Marius that his taciturnity was of the beaming order during this sweet month of May Marius and Gosset began to know these immense delights to dispute and to say you for thou simply that they might say thou the better afterwards to talk at great length with very minute details of persons in whom they took not the slightest interest in the world another proof that in that ravishing opera called love the libretto counts for almost nothing for Marius to listen to Gosset discussing finery and Gosset to listen to Marius talk in politics to listen knee pressed to knee to the carriages rolling along the Rude Babyloni to gaze upon the same planet in space or at the same glow worm gleaming in the grass to hold their peace together is still greater delight than conversation et cetera et cetera in the meantime diverse complications were approaching one evening Marius was on his way to the rendezvous by way of the boulevard Dein Valides he habitually walked with drooping head as he was on the point of turning the corner of the Rue plummet he heard someone quite close to him say good evening Monshir Marius he raised his head and recognized Eponine this produced a singular effect upon him he had not thought of that girl a single time since the day when she had conducted him to the Rue plummet he had not seen her again and she had gone completely out of his mind he had no reasons for anything but gratitude towards her he owed her his happiness and yet it was embarrassing to him to meet her it is an error to think that passion when it is pure and happy leads man to a state of perfection it simply leads him as we have noted to a state of oblivion in this situation man forgets to be bad but he also forgets to be good gratitude duty matters essential and important to be remembered vanish at any other time Marius behaved quite differently to Eponine absorbed in Cossette he had not even clearly put it to himself that this Eponine was named Eponine Thanardie and that she bore the name inscribed in his father's will that name for which but a few months before he would have so ardently sacrificed himself we show Marius as he was his father himself was fading out of his soul to some extent under the splendor of his love he replied with some embarrassment ah so it's you Eponine why do you call me you have I done anything to you no he answered certainly he had nothing against her far from it only he felt that he could not do otherwise now that he used to bow for Cossette then say you to Eponine as he remained silent she exclaimed say then she paused it seemed as though words failed that creature formerly so heedless and so bold she tried to smile and could not then she resumed well then she paused again evening Mr. Marius said she suddenly and abruptly and away she went end of book 8 chapters 2 and 3 recording by Joel Hermanson www.johermanson.com recorded by Patricia Hayes Lame is a Rob Volume 4 by Victor Hugo translated by Isobel Florence Habgood Book 8 Enchantments and Desolations Chapter 4 A Cab Runs In English and Barks In Slang The following day was the 3rd of June, 1832 a date which it is necessary to indicate on account of the grave events at that epic hung on the horizon of Paris in the state of lightning-charged clouds. Marius at nightfall was pursuing the same road as on the preceding evening, with the same thoughts of delight in his heart when he caught sight of Eponine approaching, through the trees of the boulevard. Two days in succession, this was too much. He turned hastily aside, put at the boulevard, changed his course, and went to the roux-plume through the roux-monsieur. This caused Eponine to follow him to the roux-plume, a thing which she had not yet done. Up to that time she had contended herself with watching him on his passage along the boulevard without ever seeking to encounter him. It was only on the evening before that she had attempted to address him. So Eponine followed him without his suspecting the fact. She saw him displace the bar and slip into the garden. She approached the railing, felt the bar as one after the other, and readily recognized the one which Marius had moved. She murmured in a low and in gloomy accents. None of that the set. She seated herself on the underpinning of the railing, close beside the bar as though she were guarding it. It was precisely at the point where the railing touched the neighboring wall. There was a dim nook there in which Eponine was entirely concealed. She remained thus for more than an hour, without stirring and without breathing, a pray to her thoughts. Towards ten o'clock in the evening one of the two or three persons who passed through the roux-plume, an old belated bourgeois who was making haste to escape from this deserted spot of evil repute as he skirted the garden railings and reached the angle which it made with the wall, heard a dull and threatening voice saying, I am no longer surprised that he comes here every evening. The passer-by cast a glance around him, saw no one, dared not peer into the black niche, and was greatly alarmed. He redoubled his pace. This passer-by had reason to make haste. For a very few instances later, six men who were marching separately and at some distance from each other, along the wall in whom might have been taken for a great patrol, entered the roux-plume. The first to arrive at the garden railing halted and waited for the others. A second later all six reunited. These men began to talk in a low voice. This is the place," said one of them. Is there a cab, a dog, in the garden? Ask another. I don't know. In any case, I have fetched a ball that will make him eat. Have you some putty to break the pain with? Yes. The railing is old, interpolated a fifth, who had the voice of a ventriloquist. So much the better! said the second who had spoken. It won't screech unto the saw, and it won't be hard to cut. The six who had not yet opened his lips now began to inspect the gate, as Ebonine had done an hour earlier, grasping each bar in succession and shaking them cautiously. Thus he came to the bar which Marius had loosened. As he was on the point of grasping this bar, a hand emerged abruptly from the darkness, fell upon his arm. He felt himself vigorously thrust aside by a push in the middle of his breast. At a hoarse voice said to him, but not loudly, There's a dog. At that moment he perceived a pale girl standing before him. The man underwent that shock which the unexpected always brings. He bristled up and hideous wise. Nothing is so formidable to behold as ferocious beasts who are uneasy. Their terrified air evokes terror. He recoiled and stammered, What jade is this? Your daughter. It was, in fact, Ebonine who had addressed the Nardier. At the apparition of Ebonine the other five, that is to say, Clocsu, Goulmer, Babet, Brugion, and Montparnasse, had noiselessly drawn near, without precipitation, without uttering a word, with the sinister slowness peculiar to these men of the night. Some indescribable but hideous tools were visible in their hands. Goulmer held one of those pairs of curved pinchers which prowlers call fanciens. Ah! See here! What are you about there? What do you want with us? Are you crazy? exclaimed an RDA as loudly as one can exclaim and still speak low. What have you come here to hinder our work for? Ebonine burst out laughing, and threw herself on his neck. I am here, little father, because I am here. Isn't a person allowed to sit on the stones nowadays? It's you who ought not be here. What have you come here for, since it is a biscuit? I told Magnon so. There's nothing to be done here. But embrace me, my good little father. It's a long time since I've seen you. So you're out? The Nardier tried to disentangle himself from Ebonine's arms and grumbled. That's good. You've embraced me. Yes, I'm out. I'm not in. I'll get away with you. But Ebonine did not release her hold and redoubled her caresses. But how did you manage it, little pa? You have been very clever to get out of that. Tell me about it. And my mother? Where is mother? Tell me about mama. The Nardier replied, She's well. I don't know. Let me alone and be off, I tell you. I won't go. So there now pouted Ebonine like a spoiled child. You send me off and it's four months since I saw you and I've hardly had time to kiss you. And she caught her father around the neck. Come now, this is stupid, said Babin. Me ques, c'est goomer. The cops may pass. The ventriloquist's voice repeated his distance. Nous ne sommes pas la jure de l'un. This isn't New Year's Day. Abécoter papa mama to pack it pa and ma, Ebonine turned to the five Ruffians. Why it's Monsieur Brugion. Good day, Monsieur Babin. Good day, Monsieur Klaxon. Don't you know me, Monsieur Goomer? How goes it, mon panace? Yes, they know you ejaculated in RDA. But good day, good evening, sure off, leave us alone. It's the hour for foxes, not chickens, said mon panace. You see the job we have on hand here at a Babin. Ebonine caught Mon Panace's hand. Take care, he said. You cut yourself, have a knife open. My little Mon Panace responded Ebonine very gently. You must have confidence in people. I am the daughter of my father, perhaps. Monsieur Babin, Monsieur Goomer, I am the person who was charged to investigate this matter. It is remarkable that Ebonine did not talk slang. That frightful tongue had become impossible to her since she had known Marius. She pressed in her hand small bony and feeble as that of a skeleton, Goomer's huge coarse fingers and continued, You know well that I am no fool. Ordinarily I him believed. I have rendered you service on various occasions. Well, I have made inquiries. You will expose yourselves to no purpose, you see. I swear to you that there is nothing in this house. There are lone women, said Goomer. No persons have moved away. The candles haven't anyway, ejaculated Babin. And he pointed out to Ebonine across the tops of the trees, a light which was wandering about in the mansard roof of the pavilion. It was Toussaint, who had stayed up to spread out some linen to dry. Ebonine made a final effort. Well, said she, they're very poor folks, and it's a hovel where there isn't a Sioux. Go to the devil, cried Dynardier. When we've turned the house upside down and put the cellar at the top in the attic below, we'll tell you what there is inside and whether it's Franks or Sioux or half-farthings. And he pushed her aside with the intention of entering. My good friend, Mr. Montparnasse, said Ebonine, I entreat you. You are a good fellow. Don't enter. Take care. You'll cut yourself, replied Montparnasse. Dynardier resumed in his decided term. Decap my girl and leave men to their own affairs. Ebonine released Montparnasse's hand, which she had grasped again and said, So you mean to enter this house? Rather, grinned the ventriloquist. Then she set her back against the gate, faced the six Ruffians who were armed to the teeth, and to whom the night lent the visages of demons, and said in a firm low voice, Well, I don't mean that you shall. They halted in abasement. The ventriloquist, however, finished his grin. She went on. Fens, listen well. This is not what you want. Now I am talking. In the first place, if you enter this garden, if you lay a hand on this gate, I'll scream, I'll beat on the door, I'll rouse everybody, I'll have the whole six of you seized, I'll call the police. She do it too, said Dynardier in a low tone, to bourgeois and the ventriloquist. She shook her head and at it, beginning with my father, Dynardier stepped near, not so close, my good man, said she. He retreated, growling between his teeth. Why, what's the matter with her? And he added, bitch. She began to laugh in a terrible way, as you like. But you shall not enter here. I am not the daughter of a dog. Since I am the daughter of a wolf. There are six of you. What matters that to me? You are men. Well, I am woman. You don't frighten me. I tell you that you shan't enter this house, because it doesn't suit me. If you approach, I'll bark. I told you, I'm the dog. And I don't care a straw for you. Go your way, you bore me. Go where you please, but don't come here. I forbid it. You can use your knives. I'll use kicks. It's all the same to me. Come on. She advanced to pace near the Ruffians. She was terrible. She burst out laughing. Parteen, I am not afraid. I shall be hungry this summer. And I shall be cold this winter. Aren't they ridiculous these ninnies of men who think they can scare a girl? What? Scare? Oh, yes, much. Because you have finical puppets of mistresses who hide under the bed when you put on a big voice. For sooth. I ain't afraid of anything that I ain't. She fastened her intent gaze upon the Nardier and said, Not even you, father. Then she continued as she cast her bloodshot specter like eyes upon the Ruffians in turn. What do I care if I'm picked up tomorrow morning on the pavement of the Rupleme, killed by the blows of my father's club, or whether I'm found a year from now in the nets that's salt cloud, or the eel of swan in the midst of rotten old corks and drowned dogs. She was forced to pause. She was seized by a dry cough. Her breath came from her weak and narrow chest like the death rattle. She resumed, I have only to cry out and people will come and then slap bang. There are six of you. I represent the whole world. The Nardier made a movement towards her. Don't approach. She cried. He halted and said gently. Well, no, I won't approach. But don't speak so loud. So you intend to hinder us in our work, my daughter. But we must earn our living all the same. Have you no longer any kind of feeling for your father? You bother me, said Eponine. We must live. We must eat. Burst! So saying, she seated herself on the underpinning of the fence and hummed. Mon bras si d'eau due, my arms so plump, ma jambe bien faite, my leg well formed, et le temps perdue, and time wasted. She had set her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, and she swung her foot with an air of indifference. Her tattered gown permitted a view of her thin shoulder blades. The neighbouring street lantern illuminated her profile and her attitude. Nothing more resolute and more surprising could be seen. The six rascals speechless and gloomy at being held in check by a girl, retreated beneath the shadow cast by the lantern, and held counsel with furious and humiliated shrugs. In the meantime, she stared at them with a stern but peaceful air. There's something the matter with her, said Babet. A reason. Is she in love with the dog? It's a shame to miss this, anyway. Two women, an old fellow who lodges in the backyard, and curtains that ain't so bad at the windows. The old cove must be a Jew. I think the job's a good one. Well, go in, then, the rest of you, exclaimed Montparnasse. Do the job. I'll stay here with the girl, and if she fails us, he flashed the knife, which he held open in his hand in the light of the lantern. The nardier said not a word, and seemed ready for whatever the rest pleased. Bourgeon, who was somewhat of an oracle and who had, as the reader knows, put up the job, had not as yet spoken. He seemed thoughtful. He had the reputation of not sticking at anything, and it was known that he had plundered a police post simply out of Bravado. Besides this, he made verses and songs which gave him great authority. Babet interrogated him. Say, you nothing, Bourgeon? Bourgeon remained silent an instant longer, then he shook his head in various ways and finally concluded to speak. Oh, that's bad. Let's quit. They went away. As they went, Montparnasse muttered, never mind. If they had wanted, I'd have cut her throat. Barbé responded, I wouldn't. I don't hit a lady. At the corner of the street they halted and exchanged the following egligmatico dialogue in a low tone. Where shall we go to sleep tonight? Paris. Have you the key to the gates in Ardiès? Pardi. Ebonine, who never took her eyes off of them, saw them retreat by the road by which they had come. She rose and began to creep after them along the walls and the houses. She followed them thus as far as the boulevard. There they parted, and she saw these six men plunge into the gloom where they appeared to melt away. End of Book 8, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 and 6 of Book 8 of Les Miserables. Volume 4 by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Patricia Hayes. Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood. Book 8. Enchantments and Desolations. Chapter 5. Things of the Night. After the departure of the Ruffians, the roux-plume resumed its tranquil nocturnal aspect. That which had just taken place in this street would not have astonished a forest. The lofty trees, the copses, the heaths, the branches, rudely interlaced, the tall grass exists in a somber manner. The savage swarming there catches glimpses of sudden apparitions of the invisible. That which is below man distinguishes, through the mist, that which is beyond man. And the things of which we living beings are ignorant, there meet face to face in the night. Nature, bristling and wild, takes alarm at certain approaches in which she fancies that she feels the supernatural. The forces of the gloom know each other and are strangely balanced by each other. Teeth and claws fear what they cannot grasp. Blood-drinking beseality, voracious appetites, hunger in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails and jaws which have for source and aim the belly. Glare and smell out, uneasily the impassive spectral forms, straying beneath the shroud, erect in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem to them to live with the dead and terrible life. These brutalities, which are only matter, entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity condensed into an unknown being. A black figure, barring the way, stops the wild to be short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave. The ferocious fear of the sinister. Wolves recoil when they encounter a ghoul. CHAPTER VI. Marius becomes practical once more to the extent of giving cosette his address. While this sort of a dog with a human face was mounting guard over the gate, and while the six ruffians were yielding to a girl, Marius was by cosette's side. Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating. Never had the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with the sweeter noise. Never had all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the inward music of love. Never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, more ecstatic. But he had found cosette sad. Cosette had been weeping, her eyes were red. This was the first cloud in that wonderful dream. Marius's first word had been, What is the matter? And she had replied, This. Then she had seated herself on the bench near the steps, and while he tremblingly took his place beside her, she had continued. My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness because he has business and we may go away from here. Marius shivered from head to foot. When one is at the end of one's life, to die means to go away. When one is at the beginning of it, to go away means to die. For the last six weeks Marius had little by little, slowly by degrees, taken possession of cosette each day. As we have already explained, in the case of first love, the soul is taken long before the body. Later on one takes the body long before the soul. Sometimes one does not take the soul at all. The full blasts and the prudhomes add, because there is none. But the sarcasm is, fortunately, a blasphemy. So Marius possessed cosette, as spirits possess, but he enveloped her with all his soul, and seized her jealously with incredible conviction. He possessed her smile, her breath, her perfume, the profound radiance of her blue eyes, the sweetness of her skin when he touched her hand, the charming mark which she had on her neck, all her thoughts. Therefore he possessed all cosette's dreams. He incessantly gazed at, and he sometimes touched lightly with his breath the short locks on the nape of her neck, and he declared to himself that there was not one of those short hairs which did not belong to him, Marius. He gazed upon and adored the things that she wore, her knot of ribbon, her gloves, her sleeves, her shoes, her cuffs, as sacred objects of which he was the master. He dreamed that he was the lord of those pretty shell combs which she wore in her hair. And he even said to himself, and confused and suppressed stammerings of voluptuousness which did not make their way to the light, that there was not a ribbon of her gown, not a mesh in her stockings, not a fold in her bodice, which was not his. Beside cosette he felt himself beside his own property, his own thing, his own despot and his slave. It seemed as though they had so intermingled their souls that it would have been impossible to tell them apart that they wished to take them back again. This is mine. No, it is mine. I assure you that that you are mistaken. This is my property. What you are taking as your own is myself. Marius was something that made a part of cosette, and cosette was something which made a part of Marius. Marius felt cosette within him. To have cosette, to possess cosette, this to him, was not to be distinguished from breathing. It was in the midst of this faith, of this intoxication, of this virgin possession, unprecedented and absolute, of this sovereignty that these words, we are going away, fell suddenly at a blow, and that the harsh voice of reality cried to him, cosette is not yours. Marius awoke. For six weeks Marius had been living, as we have said, outside of life. Those words, going away, caused him to re-enter it harshly. He found not a word to say. Cosette merely felt that his hand was very cold. She said to him in her turn, What is the matter? He replied in so low a tone that cosette hardly heard him. I did not understand what you said. She began again. This morning my father told me to settle all my little affairs and to hold myself in readiness that he would give me his linen to put in a trunk, that he was obliged to go on a journey, that we were to go away, that it is necessary to have a large trunk for me and a small one for him, and that all is to be ready in a week from now, and that we might go to England. But this is outrageous! exclaimed Marius. It is certain that, at that moment, no abuse of power, no violence, not one of the abominations of the worst tyrants, no action of Bessaris, of Tiberius, or of Henry VIII, could have equaled this in atrocity, in the opinion of Marius. Monsieur Fauche Levant, taking his daughter off to England because he had business there. He demanded in a weak voice. When do you start? He did not say when. And when shall you return? He did not say when. Marius rose and said coldly. Cosette, shall you go? Cosette turned toward him, her beautiful eyes, all filled with anguish, and replied in a sort of bewilderment. Where? To England. Shall you go? Why do you say you to me? I ask you whether you will go. What do you expect me to do? she said, clasping her hands. So you will go? If my father goes? So you will go? Cosette took Marius's hand and pressed it without replying. Very well, said Marius. Then I will go elsewhere. Cosette felt, rather than understood, the meaning of these words. She turned so pale that her face shone white through the gloom. She stammered. What do you mean? Marius looked at her, then raised his eyes to heaven and answered, nothing. When his eyes fell again he saw Cosette smiling at him, the smile of a woman whom one loves possesses a visible radiance, even at night. How silly we are, Marius! I have an idea. What is it? If we go away, do you go too? I will tell you where. Come and join me wherever I am. Marius was now a thoroughly roused man. He had fallen back into reality. He cried to Cosette. Go away with you. Are you mad? Why, I have to have money, and I have none. Go to England. But I am in debt now. I owe. I don't know how much. More than ten louis to Koufaraq, one of my friends with whom you are not acquainted. I have an old hat, which is not worth three francs. I have a coat, which lacks buttons in front. My shirt is all ragged. My elbows are torn. My boots let in water. For the last six weeks I have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only see me at night, and you give me your love. If you were to see me in the daytime, you would give me a sue. Go to England. Ah! I have not enough money to pay for a passport. He threw himself against a tree which was close at hand, erect, his brow pressed close to the bark, feeling neither the wood which flayed his skin nor the fever which was throbbing in his temples, and there he stood motionless on the point of falling, like the statue of despair. He remained a long time thus. One could remain for eternity in such abysses. At last he turned around. He heard behind him a faint stifled noise which was sweet yet sad. It was cosette sobbing. She had been weeping for more than two hours beside Marius as he meditated. He came to her, fell at her knees, and slowly prostrating himself. He took the tip of her foot which peeped out from beneath her robe and kissed it. She let him have his way in silence. There are moments when a woman accepts, like a somber and resigned goddess, the religion of love. To not weep, he said. She murmured. Not when I may be going away and you cannot come! He went on. Do you love me? She replied sobbing by that word from Paradise, which is never more charming than a mid-tears. I adore you! Marius resumed. He continued in a tone which was an indescribable caress. Do not weep. Tell me. Will you do this for me and cease to weep? Do you love me? said she. He took her hand. Cosette, I have never given my word of honour to any one, because my word of honour terrifies me. I feel that my father is by my side. Well, I give you my most sacred word of honour, that if you go away, I shall die. In the tone with which he uttered these words there lay a melancholy so solemn and so tranquil that Cosette trembled. She felt that chill which is produced by a true and gloomy thing as it passes by. The shock made her cease weeping. Now listen, said he, do not expect me to-morrow. Why? Do not expect me until the day after to-morrow. Oh, why? You will see. A day without seeing you, but that is impossible! Let us sacrifice one day in order to gain our whole lives, perhaps. And Marius added in a low tone and in an aside. He is a man who never changes his habits, and he has never received any one except in the evening. Of what man are you speaking? asked Cosette. I said nothing. What do you hope then? Wait until the day after to-morrow. You wish it? Yes, Cosette. She took his hand in both her hands, raising herself on Tiptoe in order to be on a level with him and try to read his hope in his eyes. Marius resumed, Now that I think of it, you ought to know my address. Something might happen. One never knows. I live with that friend named Corphrey Rock, rue de la Vérée, number sixteen. He searched in his pocket, pulled out his penknife, and with the blade he wrote on the plaster of the wall, Sixteen, rue de la Vérée. In the meantime Cosette had begun to gaze into his eyes once more. Tell me your thought, Marius. You have some idea. Tell it to me. Oh, tell me, so I may pass a pleasant night. This is my idea. That it is impossible that God should mean to part us. Wait. Expect me the day after to-morrow. What shall I do until then, said Cosette? You are outside. You go and come. How happy men are. I shall remain entirely alone. Oh, how sad I shall be. What is it that you are going to do to-morrow evening? Tell me. I am going to try something. Then I will pray to God, and I will think of you here so that you may be successful. I will question you no further, since you do not wish it. You are my master. I shall pass the evening to-morrow in singing that music from your anthe that you love, and that you came one evening to listen to outside my shutters. But day after to-morrow you will come early. I shall expect you at dusk, at nine o'clock precisely. I warn you, Mondeu, how sad it is that these days are so long. On the stroke of nine do you understand I shall be in the garden, and I also. And without having uttered it, moved by the same thought, and pelled by those electric currents which place lovers in continual communication, both being intoxicated with delight even in their sorrow, they fell into each other's arms, without perceiving that their lips met while their uplifted eyes, overflowing with rapture and full of tears, gazed upon the stars. When Marius went forth the street was deserted. This was the moment when Eponine was following the Ruffians to the Boulevard. While Marius had been dreaming with his head pressed to the tree, an idea had crossed his mind, an idea alas, that he himself judged to be senseless and impossible. He had come to a desperate decision.