 Chapter 8 of Book 6 of Les Misérables Vol. 2 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 Ruth Golding. Les Misérables Vol. 2 by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood. Book 6. Le Petit Picpus. Chapter 8. Post Corda Lapidez. After having sketched its moral face, it will not prove unprofitable to point out, in a few words, its material configuration. The reader already has some idea of it. The convent of the Petit Picpus Saint-Antoine filled almost the whole of the vast trapezium, which resulted from the intersection of the Rue Polonso, the Rue droit-mure, the Rue Petit Picpus, and the unused lane called Rue Aumaré on old plans. These four streets surrounded this trapezium like a moat. The convent was composed of several buildings and a garden. The principal building, taken in its entirety, was a juxtaposition of hybrid constructions which, viewed from a bird's eye view, outlined with considerable exactness, a gibbet laid flat on the ground. The main arm of the gibbet occupied the whole of the fragment of the Rue droit-mure, comprised between the Rue Petit Picpus and the Rue Polonso. The lesser arm was a lofty, grey, severe, grated façade which faced the Rue Petit Picpus. The carriage entrance number sixty-two marked its extremity. Towards the centre of this façade was a low arched door, whitened with dust and ashes where the spiders wove their webs, and which was open only for an hour or two on Sundays, and on rare occasions when the coffin of a nun left the convent. This was the public entrance of the church. The elbow of the gibbet was a square hall, which was used as the servant's hall, and which the nuns called the buttery. In the main arm were the cells of the mothers, the sisters and the novices. In the lesser arm lay the kitchens, the refectory, backed up by the cloisters and the church. Between the door number sixty-two and the corner of the closed lane au Marais was the school, which was not visible from without. The remainder of the trapezium formed the garden, which was much lower than the level of the Rue Polonso, which caused the walls to be very much higher on the inside than on the outside. The garden, which was slightly arched, had in its centre on the summit of a hillock a fine pointed and conical fir tree, whence ran, as from the peaked boss of a shield, four grand alleys, and ranged by twos in between the branchings of these eight small ones, so that if the enclosure had been circular the geometrical plan of the alleys would have resembled a cross superposed on a wheel. As the alleys all ended in the very irregular walls of the garden, they were of unequal length. They were bordered with current bushes. At the bottom an alley of tall poplars ran from the ruins of the old convent, which was at the angle of the Rue Droit Mur, to the house of the little convent, which was at the angle of the Au Marais Lane. In front of the little convent was what was called the little garden. To this hole let the reader add a courtyard, all sorts of varied angles formed by the interior buildings, prison walls, the long black line of roofs which bordered the other side of the Rue Pôle Enceau for its sole perspective and neighbourhood, and he will be able to form for himself a complete image of what the house of the Bernadine of the Pitypique Pousse was forty years ago. This holy house had been built on the precise site of a famous tennis ground of the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, which was called the Tennis Ground of the Eleven Thousand Devils. All these streets moreover were more ancient than Paris. These names, Droit Mur and Au Marais, are very ancient. The streets which bear them are very much more ancient still. Au Marais Lane was called Maudgoulayne. The Rue Droit Mur was called the Rue des Aiglentiers, for God opened flowers before man cut stones. End of book 6, chapter 8, recording by Ruth Golding. Chapter 9 of book 6 of Les Miserables, volume 2, 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 Lisa Kenning. Les Miserables, volume 2, by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabelle F. Hapgood, chapter 9. A Century Under a Gimp. Since we are engaged in giving details as to what the convent of the petit picnic was in former times, and since we have ventured to open a window on that discreet retreat, the reader will permit us one other little digression, utterly foreign to this book, but characteristic and useful, since it shows that the cloister even has its original figures. In the little convent, there was a centenarian who came from the Abbey of Fontreville. She had even been in society before the Revolution. She talked a great deal of M.D. Miram Meznel, Keeper of the Seals, under Louis XVI, and of a Presidentes du Platte, with whom she had been very intimate. It was her pleasure and her vanity to drag in these names on every pretext. She told Wonders of the Abbey of Fontreville that it was like a city, and that there were streets in the monastery. She talked with a Picard accent, which amused the peoples. Every year she solemnly renewed her vows, and at the moment of taking the oath, she said to the priest, M.S. François gave it to M.S. Julien, M.S. Julien gave it to M.S. Eusebius, M.S. Eusebius gave it to M.S. Procopius, etc., etc., and thus I give it to you, father. And the schoolgirls would begin to laugh, not in their sleeves, but under their veils, charming little stifled laughs which made the vocal mothers frown. On another occasion, the centenarian was telling stories. She said that in her youth, the Bernardine monks were every witch as good as the mousquitaires. It was a century which spoke through her, but it was the eighteenth century. She told about the custom of the four wines, which existed before the revolution in Champagne, and Bougognea. When a great personage, a martial of France, a prince, a duke, and a pier, traversed a town in Burgundy or Champagne, the city fathers came out to harangue him and presented him with four silver gondolas into which they had poured four different sorts of wine. On the first goblet this inscription could be read, Monkey Wine, on the second Lion Wine, on the third Sheep Wine, on the fourth Hog Wine. These four legends express the four stages descended by the drunkard, the first intoxication, which enlivens, the second, that which irritates, the third, that which dulls, and the fourth, that which brutalizes. In a cupboard under lock and key she kept a mysterious object of which she thought a great deal. The rule of Fontreville did not forbid this. She would not show this object to anyone. She shut herself up, which her rule allowed her to do, and hit herself, every time that she desired to contemplate it. If she heard a footstep in the corridor, she closed the cupboard again as hastily as it was possible with her aged hands. As soon as it was mentioned to her, she became silent. She was so fond of talking. The most curious were baffled by her silence, and the most tenacious by her obstinacy. Thus it furnished a subject of comment for all those who were unoccupied or bored in the convent. What could that treasure of the centenarian be, which was so precious and so secret? Some holy book, no doubt, some unique chaplet, some authentic relic? They lost themselves in conjectures. When the poor old woman died, they rushed to her cupboard more hastily than was fitting, perhaps, and opened it. They found the object beneath a triple linen cloth, like some consecrated patent. It was a faunce of platter, representing little loves flitting away, pursued by apothecary lads armed with enormous syringes. The chase abounds in grimaces and in comical postures. One of the charming little loves is already fairly spitted. He is resisting, fluttering his tiny wings, and still making an effort to fly, but the dancer is laughing with a satanical air. Moral, love conquered by the colic. This platter, which is very curious, and which had possibly the honour of furnishing Molière with an idea, was still in existence in September, 1845. It was for sale by a brick-a-brack merchant in the Boulevard Beaumarchais. This good old woman would not receive any visits from outside, because, said she, the parlor is too gloomy. TRANSLATED BY ISABEL FLORENCE HAPGOOD BOOK SIXTH, LE PETIT PICPUCE, CHAPTER X, ORIGIN OF THE PERPETUAL ADERATION However, this almost sepulchral parlor, of which we have sought to convey an idea, is a purely local tray, which is not reproduced with the same severity in other convents. At the convent of the Rue du Temple, in particular, which belonged in truth to another order, the black shutters were replaced by brown curtains, and the parlor itself was a salon with a polished wood floor, whose windows were draped in white muslin curtains, and whose walls admitted all sorts of frames, a portrait of a Benedictine nun with unveiled face, painted bouquets, and even the head of a turk. It is in that garden of the Tampler convent, that stood that famous chestnut tree which was renowned as the finest and the largest in France, and which bore the reputation among the good people of the eighteenth century of being the father of all the chestnut trees of the realm. As we have said, this convent of the Tampler was occupied by Benedictines of the perpetual adoration, Benedictines quite different from those who depended on Cito. This order of the perpetual adoration is not very ancient, and does not go back more than two hundred years. In 1649 the Holy Sacrament was profaned on two occasions a few days apart in two churches in Paris, at Saint Sulpice, and at Saint-Jean-en-Grive, a rare and frightful sacrilege which set the whole town in an uproar. Monsieur the prior and vicar-general of Saint-Germain-des-Prés ordered a solemn procession of all his clergy in which the Pope's nuncio officiated. But this expiation did not satisfy two sainted women, Madame Cortain, Marquis de Boux, and the contest de Château Vieux. This outrage committed on the most holy sacrament of the altar, though but temporary, would not depart from these holy souls, and it seemed to them that it could only be extenuated by a perpetual adoration in some female monastery. Both of them, one in 1652, the other in 1653, made donations of notable sums to mother Catherine de Barres, called of the Holy Sacrament, a Benedictine nun, for the purpose of founding to this pious end, a monastery of the Order of Saint-Benoît. The first permission for this foundation was given to mother Catherine de Barres by Monsieur de Metz, abbay of Saint-Germain, on condition that no woman could be received unless she contributed three hundred livres-income, which amounts to six thousand livres, to the principal. After the abbay of Saint-Germain, the king accorded letters patent, and all the rest, a basal charter and royal letters, was confirmed in 1654 by the Chamber of Accounts and the Parliament. Such is the origin of the legal consecration of the establishment of the Benedictines of the perpetual adoration of the Holy Sacrament at Paris. Their first convent was a new building in La Rue Cassette, part of the contributions of Madame de Boux and de Château-Vieux. This order, as it will be seen, was not to be confounded with the Benedictine nuns of Citeau. It mounted back to the abbay of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in the same manner that the ladies of the Sacred Heart go back to the general of the Jesuits, and the sisters of charity to the general of the Lazarists. It was also totally different from the Bernardines of the Petit-Pépus, whose interior we have just shown. In 1657 Pope Alexander VII had authorized, by a special brief, the Bernardines of the Rue Petit-Pépus, to practice the perpetual adoration, like the Benedictine nuns of the Holy Sacrament. But the two orders remained distinct nonetheless. Eastman Les Miserables Vol. 2 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood Book 6 Le Petit-Pépus Chapter 11 End of the Petit-Pépus At the beginning of the restoration, the convent of the Petit-Pépus was in its decay. This forms a part of the general death of the order, which after the 18th century, has been disappearing, like all the religious orders. Contemplation is, like prayer, one of humanity's needs. But, like everything which the revolution touched, it will be transformed, and from being hostile to social progress, it will become favorable to it. The house of the Petit-Pépus was becoming rapidly depopulated. In 1840, the little convent had disappeared, the school had disappeared. There were no longer any old women nor young girls. The first were dead. The latter had taken their departure. Vol. 2 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood The rule of the perpetual adoration is so rigid in its nature that it alarms, vocations recoil before it. The order receives no recruits. In 1845 it still obtained lay sisters here and there. But of professed nuns, none at all. Forty years ago the nuns numbered nearly a hundred. Fifteen years ago there were not more than twenty eight of them. How many are there today? In 1847 the priorus was young, a sign that the circle of choice was restricted. She was not forty years old. In proportion as the number diminishes, the fatigue increases. The service of each becomes more painful. The moment could then be seen drawing near when there would be but a dozen bent and aching shoulders to bear the heavy rule of Zambinois. The burden is implacable and remains the same for the few as for the many. It weighs down, it crushes. Thus they die. At the period when the author of this book still lived in Paris, two died. One was twenty-five years old, the other twenty-three. This latter can say, like Julia Alpinulla, It is in consequence of this decay that the convent gave up the education of girls. We have not felt able to pass before this extraordinary house without entering it, and without introducing the minds which accompany us and which are listening to our tale to the prophet of some perchance of the melancholy history of Jean Valjean. We have penetrated into this community full of those old practices which seem so novel today. It is the closed garden, Hortus conclusus. We have spoken of the singular place in detail, but with respect insofar at least as detail and respect are compatible. We do not understand all, but we insult nothing. We are equally far removed from the osana of Hoseph de Mestre, who wound up by anointing the executioner, and from the sneer of Voltaire, who even goes so far as to ridicule the cross. An illogical act on Voltaire's part, we may remark by the way, for Voltaire would have defended Jesus as he defended Calus. And even for those who deny superhuman incarnations, what does the crucifix represent? The assassinated sage. In this nineteenth century the religious idea is undergoing a crisis. People are unlearning certain things, and they do well, provided that, while unlearning them, they learn this. There is no vacuum in the human heart. Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but on condition that they are followed by reconstructions. In the meantime, let us study things which are no more. It is necessary to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future. This spectre, this past, is given to falsifying its own passport. Let us inform ourselves of the trap. Let us be on our guard. The past has a visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy. Let us denounce the visage, and let us tear off the mask. As for convents, they present a complex problem. A question of civilization which condemns them. A question of liberty which protects them. End of book 6 chapter 11 Chapter 1 The Convent as an Abstract Idea This book is a drama whose leading personage is the infinite. Man is the second. Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be on our road, it has been our duty to enter it. Why? Because the convent which is common to the Orient as well as to the Occident, to antiquity as well as to modern times, to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mohammedanism, as well as to Christianity, is one of the optical apparatus applied by man to the infinite. This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on certain ideas. Nevertheless, while absolutely maintaining our reserves, our restrictions, and even our indignations, we must say that every time we encounter man in the infinite, either well or ill understood, we feel ourselves overpowered with respect. There is, in the synagogue, in the mosque, in the pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we execrate, and a sublime side which we adore. What a contemplation for the mind, and what endless food for thought is the reverberation of God upon the human wall. End of book seventh, chapter one, recording by Ruth Golding Chapter two of book seven of Les Miserables, volume two by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, nor to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ian Lynch Les Miserables, volume two by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood, book seven, parenthesis, chapter two. The Convent as an Historical Fact From the point of view of history, of reason, and of truth, monasticism is condemned. Monasteries, when they abound in a nation, are clogs in its circulation. Convruous establishments, centers of idleness, where centers of labor should exist. Monastic communities are to the great social community what the mistletoe is to the oak, what the wart is to the human body. Their prosperity and their fatness mean the impoverishment of the country. The monastic regime, good at the beginning of civilization, useful in the reduction of the brutal by the spiritual, is bad when peoples have reached their manhood. Moreover, when it becomes relaxed and when it enters into its period of disorder, it becomes bad for the very reasons which rendered it salutary in its period of purity, because it still continues to set the example. Clostration has had its day. Cloisters, useful in the early education of modern civilization, have embarrassed its growth, and are injurious to its development. So far, as institution and formation with relation to man are concerned, monasteries, which were good in the 10th century, questionable in the 15th, are detestable in the 19th. The leprosy of monasticism has gnawed nearly to a skeleton two wonderful nations, Italy and Spain, the one the light, the other the splendor of Europe for centuries, and at the present day these two illustrious peoples are but just beginning to convalesce thanks to the healthy and vigorous hygiene of 1789 alone. The convent, the ancient female convent in particular, such as it still presents itself on the threshold of this century in Italy, in Austria, in Spain, is one of the most somber concretions of the Middle Ages. The cloister, that cloister, is the point of intersection of horrors, the Catholic cloister, properly speaking, is wholly filled with the black radiance of death. The Spanish convent is the most funerial of all. There rise an obscurity beneath vaults filled with gloom, beneath domes of vague shadow, massive altars of babble, as high as cathedrals, their immense white crucifixes hang from chains in the dark. There are extended, all nude on the ebony, great christs of ivory, more than bleeding, bloody, hideous and magnificent, with their elbows displaying the bones, their knee-pans showing their integuments, their wounds showing their flesh, crowned with silver thorns nailed with nails of gold, with blood drops of rubies on their brows, and diamond tears in their eyes. The diamonds and rubies seem wet and make veiled beings in the shadow, below, weep. Their sides bruised with the hair, shirt, and their iron-tip scorges, their breasts crushed with wicker hurdles, their knees excortiated with prayer, women who think themselves wives, specters who think themselves seraphim. Do these women think? No. Have they any will? No. Do they love? No. Do they live? No. Their nerves have turned to bone, their bones have turned to stone, their veil is of woven night, their breath under their veil resembles the indescribably tragic respiration of death. The abyss, a specter, sanctifies them and terrifies them. The immaculate one is there and very fierce. Such are the ancient monasteries of Spain, liars of terrible devotion, caverns of virgins, ferocious places. Catholic Spain is more Roman than Rome herself. The Spanish convent was, above all others, the Catholic convent. There was a flavor of the Orient about it. The Archbishop, the Quislar Aga of Heaven, locked up and kept watch over the seragelio of souls reserved for God. The nun was the Oralisk, the priest was the eunuch. The fervent were chosen in dreams and possessed Christ. At night, the beautiful nude young man descended from the cross and became the ecstasy of the cloistered one. Lofty walls guarded the mystic sultana who had the crucified for her sultan from all living distraction. A glance in the outer world was infidelity. The in pace replaced the leather sack. That which was cast into the sea in the east was thrown into the ground in the west. In both quarters women wrung their hands, the waves for the first, the grave for the last. Here the drowned, there the buried, monstrous parallel. Today the upholders of the past, unable to deny these things, have adopted the expedient of smiling at them. There has come into fashion a strange and easy manner of suppressing the revelations of history, of invalidating the commentaries of philosophy, of eliding all embarrassing facts and all gloomy questions. A matter for declamations, say the clever, declamations repeat the foolish. Jean-Jacques, a declaimer. Diderot, a declamer. Voltaire, on Coloss. Labar, and Syrivan, declamers. I know not who has recently discovered that Tacitus was a declamer, that Nero was a victim, and that Pity is decidedly due to that poor halophonies. Facts, however, are awkward things to disconcert, and they are obstinate. The author of this book has seen, with his own eyes, eight leagues distant from Brussels, there are relics of the Middle Ages there which are attainable for everybody, at the Abbey of Villars, the whole of the Ublietz, in the middle of the field, which was formerly the courtyard of the Cloister, and on the banks of the till, four stone dungeons, half under ground, half under the water. They were in pace. Each of these dungeons has the remains of an iron door, a vault, and a graded opening, which, on the outside, is two feet above the level of the river, and on the inside, six feet above the level of the ground. Four feet of the river flow past along the outside wall. The ground is always soaked. The occupant of the in pace had the wet soil for his bed. In one of these dungeons, there is a fragment of an iron necklace riveted to the wall. In another, there can be seen a square box made of four slabs of granite, too short for a person to lie down in, too low for him to stand upright in. A human being was put inside with a cover lid of stone on top. This exists. It can be seen. It can be touched. These in pace, these dungeons, these iron hinges, these necklace, that lofty peephole on a level with the river's current, that box of stone closed with a lid of granite like a tomb, with this difference, that the dead man here was a living being, that soil which is but mud, that vault hole, those oozing walls, what declaimers. End of book seven, chapter two. Volume two by Victor Hugo, translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood. Book seven. Parenthesis. Chapter three. On what conditions one can respect the past? Monasticism, such as it existed in Spain, and such as it still exists in Tibet, is a sort of thesis for civilization. It stops life short. It simply depopulates. Clostration, castration. It has been the scourge of Europe. Add to this the violence so often done to the conscience, the forced vocations, feudalism bolstered up by the cloister, the rite of the firstborn pouring the excess of the family into monasticism, the ferocities of which we have just spoken, the impache, the closed mouths, the walled up brains, so many unfortunate minds placed in the dungeon of eternal vows, the taking of the habit, the interment of living souls. Add individual tortures to national degradations, and whoever you may be, you will shudder before the frock and the veil, those two winding sheets of human devising. Nevertheless, at certain points and in certain places, in spite of philosophy, in spite of progress, the spirit of the cloister persists in the midst of the nineteenth century, and a singular ascetic recrudescence is at this moment astonishing the civilized world. The obstinacy of antiquated institutions in perpetuating themselves resembles the stubbornness of the rancid perfume which should claim our hair, the pretensions of the spoiled fish which should persist in being eaten, the persecution of the child's garment which should insist on clothing the man, the tenderness of corpses which should return to embrace the living. Ingrates says the garment, I protected you in inclement weather, why will you have nothing to do with me? I have just come from the deep sea, says the fish. I have been arose, says the perfume. I have loved you, says the corpse. I have civilized you, says the convent. To this there is but one reply. In former days, to dream of the indefinite prolongation of defunct things and of the government of men by embalming, to restore dogmas in a bad condition, to re-guild shrines, to patch up cloisters, to re-bless relicaries, to re-furnish superstitions, to revitual fanaticism, to put new handles on holy water brushes and militarism, to reconstitute monasticism and militarism, to believe in the salvation of society by the multiplication of parasites, to force the past on the present. This seems strange. Still there are theorists who hold such theories. These theorists who are in other respects people of intelligence have a very simple process. They apply to the past a glazing which they call social order, divine right, morality, family, the respect of elders, antique authority, sacred tradition, legitimacy, religion. And they go about shouting, look, take this honest people. This logic was known to the ancients. The soothsayers practiced it. They rubbed a black heifer over with chalk and said, she is white, both cretatus. As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it. Superstitions, bigotries, affected devotion, prejudices, those forms, all forms as they are, are tenacious of life. They have teeth and nails in their smoke, and they must be clasped close, body to body, and war must be made on them, and that without truce. For it is one of the fatalities of humanity, to be condemned to eternal combat with phantoms. It is difficult to seize darkness by the throat, and to hurl it to the earth. A convent in France, in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century, is a college of owls facing the light. A cloister caught in the very act of asceticism, in the very heart of the city of eighty-nine, and of eighteen-thirty, and of eighteen-forty-eight. Rome blossoming out in Paris is an anachronism. In ordinary times, in order to dissolve an anachronism and to cause it to vanish, one has only to make it spell out the date. But we are not in ordinary times. Let us fight. Let us fight, but let us make a distinction. The peculiar property of truth is never to commit excesses. What need has it of exaggeration? There is that which it is necessary to destroy, and there is that which it is simply necessary to elucidate and examine. What a force is kindly and serious examination. Let us not apply a flame where only a light is required. So, given the nineteenth century, we are opposed as a general proposition and among all peoples, in Asia as well as in Europe, in India as well as in Turkey, to ascetic clostration. Whoever says cloister says marsh. Their putrescence is evident. Their stagnation is unhealthy. Their fermentation infects people with fever and etiolates them. Their multiplication becomes a plague of Egypt. We cannot think without a fright of those lands where fakers, bonzas, santons, Greek monks, maribots, talipoins, and dervishes multiply, even like swarms of vermin. This said, the religious question remains. This question has certain mysterious, almost formidable sides. May we be permitted to look at it fixedly. Chapter 4 of Book 7 of Les Miserables Vol. 2 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 Ruth Golding. Les Miserables Vol. 2 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood. Book 7th, Parenthesis. Chapter 4 The Convent from the Point of View of Principles Men unite themselves and dwell in communities. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right of association. They shut themselves up at home. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right which every man has to open or shut his door. They do not come forth. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right to go and come, which implies the right to remain at home. There, at home, what do they do? They speak in low tones. They drop their eyes. They toil. They renounce the world, towns, sensualities, pleasures, vanities, pride, interests. They are clothed in coarse woollen or coarse linen. Not one of them possesses in his own right anything whatever. On entering there, each one who was rich makes himself poor. What he has, he gives to all. He who was what is called noble, a gentleman and a lord, is the equal of him who was a peasant. The cell is identical for all. All undergo the same tonsure, wear the same frock, eat the same black bread, sleep on the same straw, die on the same ashes. The same sack on their backs, the same rope around their loins. If the decision has been to go barefoot, all go barefoot. There may be a prince among them. That prince is the same shadow as the rest. No titles. Even family names have disappeared. They bear only first names. All are bowed beneath the equality of baptismal names. They have dissolved the carnal family and constituted in their community a spiritual family. They have no other relatives than all men. They sucker the poor. They care for the sick. They elect those whom they obey. They call each other my brother. You stop me and exclaim, but that is the ideal convent. It is sufficient that it may be the possible convent that I should take notice of it. Thence it results that in the preceding book I have spoken of a convent with respectful accents. The middle ages cast aside, Asia cast aside, the historical and political question held in reserve, from the purely philosophical point of view, outside the requirements of militant policy, on condition that the monastery shall be absolutely a voluntary matter, and shall contain only consenting parties, I shall always consider a cloistered community with a certain attentive, and in some respects a deferential, gravity. Wherever there is a community, there is a commune. Where there is a commune, there is right. The monastery is the product of the formula equality fraternity. Oh, how grand is liberty, and what a splendid transfiguration. Liberty suffices to transform the monastery into a republic. Let us continue. But these men, or these women who are behind these four walls, they dress themselves in coarse woollen, they are equals, they call each other brothers, that is well. But they do something else. Yes. What? They gaze on the darkness, they kneel, and they clasp their hands. What does this signify? End of Book 7th Chapter 4, Recording by Ruth Golden Chapter 5 of Book 7 of Les Misérables Vol. 2 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 Ruth Golden Les Misérables Vol. 2 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood Book 7th, Parenthesis Chapter 5 Prayer They pray To whom? To God To pray to God, what is the meaning of these words? Is there an infinite beyond us? Is that infinite there, inherent, permanent, necessarily substantial since it is infinite, and because if it lacked matter it would be bounded? Necessarily intelligent since it is infinite, and because if it lacked intelligence it would end there. Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence while we can attribute to ourselves only the idea of existence? In other terms, is it not the absolute of which we are only the relative? At the same time that there is an infinite without us, is there not an infinite within us? Are not those two infinites, what an alarming plural, superposed, the one upon the other? Is not this second infinite, so to speak, adjacent to the first? Is it not the latter's mirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with another abyss? Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think? Does it love? Does it will? If these two infinities are intelligent each of them has a will, principle, and there is an I in the upper infinity as there is an I in the lower infinity. The I below is the soul, the I on high is God. To place the infinity here below in contact by the medium of thought with the infinity on high is called praying. Let us take nothing from the human mind. To suppress is bad. We must reform and transform. Certain faculties in man are directed towards the unknown. Thought, reverie, prayer. The unknown is an ocean. What is conscience? It is the compass of the unknown. Thought, reverie, prayer. These are great and mysterious radiations. Let us respect them. Wither go these majestic irradiations of the soul into the shadow. That is to say to the light. The grandeur of democracy is to disown nothing and to deny nothing of humanity. Close to the right of the man, beside it, at the least, there exists the right of the soul. To crush fanaticism and to venerate the infinite such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to prostrating ourselves before the tree of creation and to the contemplation of its branches full of stars. We have a duty to labour over the human soul, to defend the mystery against the miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and reject the absurd, to admit as an inexplicable fact only what is necessary, to purify belief, to remove superstitions from above religion, to clear God of caterpillars. End of Book 7th Chapter 5 Recording by Ruth Golding Chapter 6 of Book 7 of Lame is a Rob, Volume 2 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 Kailu Lame is a Rob, Volume 2 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood Book 7th Parentheses Chapter 6 The Absolute Goodness of Prayer With regard to the modes of prayer, all our good provided that they are sincere. Turn your book upside down and be in the infinite. There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, pathologically classified, which denies the sun. This philosophy is called blindness. To erect a sense which we lack into a source of truth is a fine blind man's self-sufficiency. The curious thing is the haughty, superior, and compassionate heirs which his groping philosophy assumes toward the philosophy which beholds God. One fancies he hears a mole crying, I pity them with their sun. There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists. It is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God. We salute them as philosophers while inexorably denouncing their philosophy. Let us go on. The remarkable thing about it is also their facility in paying themselves off with words. A metaphysical school of the North impregnated to some extent with fog has fancied that it has worked a revolution in human understanding by replacing the word force with the word will. To say, the plant wills. Instead of, the plant grows. This would be fecund in results, indeed, if we were to add, the universe wills. Why? Because it would come to this. The plant wills. Therefore it has an I. The universe wills. Therefore it has a God. As for us who, however, in contradistinction to this school reject nothing a priori, a will in the plant accepted by this school appears to us more difficult to admit than a will in the universe denied by it. To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible on any other conditions than a denial of the infinite. We have demonstrated this. The negation of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything becomes a mental conception. With nihilism, no discussion is possible, for the nihilist logic doubts the existence of its interlocutor, and is not quite sure that it exists itself. From its point of view, it is possible that it may be for itself only a mental conception. Only, it does not perceive that all which has denied it admits in the lump, simply by the utterance of the word mind. In short, no way is open to the thought by a philosophy which makes all end in the monosyllable, no. To no, there is only one reply. Yes, nihilism has no point. There is no such thing as nothingness. Zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives by affirmation, even more than by bread. Even to see and to show does not suffice. Philosophy should be an energy. It should have for effort and effect to ameliorate the condition of man. Socrates should enter into Adam and produce Marcus Aurelius. In other words, the man of wisdom should be made to emerge from the man of felicity. Geden should be changed into a lyceum. Science should be a cordial. To enjoy what a sad aim and what a paltry ambition. The brute enjoys to offer thought to the thirst of men, to give them all as an elixir the notion of God, to make conscience and science fraternize in them, to render them just by this mysterious confrontation, such as the function of real philosophy. Morality is a blossoming out of truths. Contemplation leads to action. The absolute should be practicable. It is necessary that the ideal should be breathable, drinkable and eatable to the human mind. It is the ideal which has the right to say, take this. It is on this condition that it ceases to be a sterile love of science and becomes the one and sovereign mode of human rallying and that philosophy herself is promoted to religion. Philosophy should not be a corbel erected on mystery to gaze upon it at its ease without any other result than that of being convenient to curiosity. For our part, adjourning the development of our thought to another occasion, we will confine ourselves to saying that we neither understand man as a point of departure nor progress as an end without those two forces which are their two motors, faith and love. Progress is the goal. The ideal is the type. What is this ideal? It is God. Ideal, absolute, perfection, infinity, identical words. Les Miserables Vol. 2 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 Ruth Golding. Les Miserables Vol. 2 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood Book Seventh Parenthesis Chapter Seven Precautions to be Observed in Blame History and philosophy have eternal duties which are at the same time simple duties. To combat Caiaphas the High Priest, Draco the Lawgiver, Trimalsian the Legislator, Tiberius the Emperor. This is clear, direct, and limpid, and offers no obscurity. But the right to live apart, even with its inconveniences and its abuses, insists on being stated and taken into account. Scenobotism is a human problem. When one speaks of convents, those abodes of error but of innocence, of aberration but of goodwill, of ignorance but of devotion, of torture but of martyrdom, it always becomes necessary to say either yes or no. A convent is a contradiction. Its object, salvation, its means there too, sacrifice. The convent is supreme egoism having for its result supreme abnegation. To abdicate with the object of reigning seems to be the device of monasticism. In the cloister one suffers in order to enjoy. One draws a bill of exchange on death. One discounts in terrestrial gloom celestial light. In the cloister hell is accepted in advance as a post-obit on paradise. The taking of the veil or the frock is a suicide paid for with eternity. It does not seem to us that on such a subject mockery is permissible. All about it is serious, the good as well as the bad. The just man frowns, but never smiles with a malicious sneer. We understand Roth, but not Malice. Recorded by Geneva Les Mousyrabes by Vector Hugo, translated by Isabelle Florence-Hupgood Volume 2, Book 7, Chapter 8, Faith, Law A few words more. We blame the church when she is saturated with intrigues, we despise the spiritual which is harsh toward the timber, but we everywhere honor the sought-for man. We salute the man who nears. A faith, this is a necessity for man. All to him who believes nothing. One is not unoccupied because one is absorbed, there is visible labor and invisible labor. To contemplate is to labor, to think is to act. Folded arms toy, clasped hands work. A gaze fixed on heaven is a work. Cellis remained motionless for four years, he founded philosophy. In our opinion, synobites are not lazy men, and recluses are not idlers. To meditate on the shadow is a serious thing. Without invalidating anything that we have just said, we believe that a perpetual memory of the tomb is proper for the living. On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree, we must die. Dear Beatela Trumper replies to Horace. To mingle with one's life, a certain presence of the sepulchre. This is the law of the sage, and it is the law of the ascetic. In this respect, the ascetic and the sage converge. There is a material growth, we admit it. There is a moral grandeur, we hold to that. Thoughtless and vivacious spirits sing. What is the good of those motionless figures on the side of mystery? What purpose do they serve? What do they do? Alas, in the presence of the darkness which environs us, and which awaits us, in our ignorance of what the immense dispersion will make of us, we reply. There is probably no work more divine than that performed by these souls. And we add, there is probably no work which is more useful. There certainly must be some who pray constantly for those who never pray at all. In our opinion, the whole question lies in the amount of thought that is mingled with prayer. Life needs praying is grand, but here adoring is fine. Dear Exrecis, foretell, we are for religion as against religions. We are often number who believe in the richness of horizons and the sublimity of prayer. Moreover, at this minute which we are now traversing, a minute which will not, fortunately, live its impress on the nineteenth century. At this hour, when so many men have low brows and soles but little elevated, among so many mortals, whose morality consists in enjoyment, and who are busy with the brief and misshapen things of matter, whoever excites himself seems worthy of veneration to us. The monastery is a renunciation, sacrifice only directed is still sacrifice. To mistake a grave error for a duty has a grandeur of its own. Taken by itself and ideally, and in order to examine the truths on all sides until all aspects have been impartially exhausted, the monastery, the female convent in particular, for in our century, it is women who serve us the most, and in this exile of the cloister, there is something of protestation. The female convent has inconsistently a certain majesty. This cloistered existence, which is so austere, so depressing, a few of whose features we have just traced, is not life, for it is not liberty. It is not a tomb, for it is not plenitude. It is the strange place, when one beholds, as from the crest of a lofty mountain. On one side, there be where we are, on the other, there be where we shall go. It is narrow and misty frontier, separating two worlds, illuminated and obscured by both at the same time, where the ray of life which has become enfeebled is mingled with the vague ray of death. It is the half obscurity of the tomb. We, who do not believe what these women believe, but who, like them, live by faith, we have never been able to sink without a sort of tender and religious terror, without a sort of pity that is full of envy, of those devoted, trembling and trusting creatures, of this humble and august souls, who dare to dwell on the very brink of the mystery, waiting between the world which is closed, and the heaven which is not yet open, turned towards the light which one cannot see, possessing the soul happiness of thinking that they know where it is, aspiring towards the gulf and the unknown, their eyes fixed motionless on the darkness, kneeling, bewildered, stupefied, shattering, half lifted, at times, by the deep breeze of eternity. Chapter 1 of Book 8 of Les Miserables, Volume 2 by Victor Hugo This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kalinda Les Miserables, Volume 2 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood Book 8 Cemetery's Take That Which Is Committed To Them Chapter 1 Which Treats Of The Manor Of Entering A Convent It was into this house that Jean Valjean had, as Fautche Levin expressed it, fallen from the sky. He had scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the rue Pôle Enceau. That hymn of the angels which he had heard in the middle of the night was the nuns chanting matins. That hall of which he had caught a glimpse in the gloom was the chapel. That phantom which he had seen stretched on the ground was the sister who was making reparation. That bell, the sound of which had so strangely surprised him, was the gardener's bell, attached to the knee of Father Fautche Levin. Cosette once put to bed, Jean Valjean and Fautche Levin had, as we have already seen, sucked on a glass of wine and a bit of cheese before a good crackling fire. Then, the only bed in the hut being occupied by Cosette, each threw himself on a truss of straw. Before he shut his eyes, Jean Valjean said, I must remain here henceforth. This remark trotted through Fautche Levin's head all night long, to tell the truth neither of them slept. Jean Valjean, feeling that he was discovered and that Javert was on his scent, understood that he and Cosette were lost if they returned to Paris. Then the new storm which had just burst upon him had stranded him in this cloister. Jean Valjean had henceforth but one thought, to remain there. Now, for an unfortunate man in his position, this convent was both the safest and the most dangerous of places. The most dangerous because as no man might enter there, if he were discovered it was a flagrant offence, and Jean Valjean would find but one step intervening between the convent and the prison. The safest because if he could manage to get himself accepted there and remain there, who would ever seek him in such a place? To dwell in an impossible place was safety. On his side Fautche Levin was cuddling his brains. He began by declaring to himself that he understood nothing of the matter. How had Monsieur Madeleine got there when the walls were what they were? Cloister walls are not to be stepped over. How did he get there with a child? One cannot scale a perpendicular wall with a child in one's arms. Who was that child? Where did they both come from? Since Fautche Levin had lived in the convent, he had heard nothing of Monsieur Sir M, and he knew nothing of what had taken place there. Father Madeleine had an air which discouraged questions, and besides Fautche Levin said to himself, one does not question a saint. Monsieur Madeleine had preserved all his prestige in Fautche Levin's eyes. Only from some words which Jean Valjean had let fall, the gardener thought he could draw the inference that Monsieur Madeleine had probably become bankrupt through the hard times and that he was pursued by his creditors, or that he had compromised himself in some political affair and was in hiding, which last did not displease Fautche Levin, who, like many of our peasants of the north, had an old fund of bonapartism about him. While in hiding, Monsieur Madeleine had selected the convent as a refuge, and it was quite simple that he should wish to remain there. But the inexplicable point to which Fautche Levin returned constantly, and over which he wearied his brain, was that Monsieur Madeleine should be there, and that he should have that little girl with him. Fautche Levin saw them, touched them, spoke to them, and still did not believe it possible. The incomprehensible had just made its entrance into Fautche Levin's hut. Fautche Levin groped about amid conjectures and could see nothing clearly but this. Monsieur Madeleine saved my life. This certainty alone was sufficient and decided his course. He said to himself, it is my turn now. He added in his conscience, Monsieur Madeleine did not stop to deliberate when it was a question of thrusting himself under the cart for the purpose of dragging me out. He made up his mind to save Monsieur Madeleine. Nevertheless, he put many questions to himself, and made himself diverse replies. And what he did for me, would I save him if he were a thief? Just the same. If he were an assassin, would I save him? Just the same. Since he is a saint, shall I save him? Just the same. But what a problem it was to manage to have him remain in the convent. Fautche Levin did not recoil in the face of this almost chimerical undertaking, this poor peasant of Picardie without any other latter than his self-defotion, his goodwill, and a little of that old rustic cunning. On this occasion, enlisted in the service of a generous enterprise, undertook to scale the difficulties of the cloister and the steep escarpments of the rule of Saint-Bonnevoir. Father Fautche Levin was an old man who had been an egoist all his life, and who, towards the end of his days, halt and firm, with no interest left to him in the world, found it sweet to be grateful, and perceiving a generous action to be performed, flung himself upon it like a man who, at the moment when he is dying, should find close to his hand a glass of good wine which he had never tasted, and should swallow it with avidity. We may add that the air which he had breathed for many years in this convent had destroyed all personality in him, and had ended by rendering a good action of some kind absolutely necessary to him. So he took his resolve to devote himself to Monsieur Madeleine. We have just called him a poor peasant of Picardie. That description is just but incomplete. At the point of this story which we have now reached, a little of Father Fautche Levin's physiology becomes useful. He was a peasant, but he had been a notary, which added trickery to his cunning, and penetration to his ingenuousness. Having, through various causes failed in his business, he had descended to the calling of a carter and a labourer. But in spite of oaths and lashings which horses seemed to require, something of the notary had lingered in him. He had some natural wit. He talked good grammar. He conversed, which is a rare thing in a village, and the other peasant said of him, he talks almost like a gentleman with a hat. Fautche Levin belonged, in fact, to that species which the impertinent and flippant vocabulary of the last century qualified as demi-bourgeois, demi-laute, and which the metaphor showered by the chateau upon the thatched cottage, ticketed in the pigeon-hall of the plebeian, rather rustic rather acidified, pepper and salt. Fautche Levin, though sorely tried and harshly used by fate, worn out, a sort of poor, threadbare old soul, was nevertheless an impulsive man, and extremely spontaneous in his actions, a precious quality which prevents one from ever being wicked. His defects and his vices, for he had some, were all superficial. In short, his physiognomy was of the kind which succeeds within an observer. His aged face had none of those disagreeable wrinkles at the top of the forehead which signify malice or stupidity. At daybreak, Father Fautche Levin opened his eyes after having done an enormous deal of thinking, and beheld Monsieur Madeleine seated on his truss of straw, and watching Cosette slumbers. Fautche Levin sat up and said, Now that you are here, how are you going to contrive to enter? This remark summed up the situation and aroused Jean Valjean from his reverie. The two men took counsel together. In the first place, said Fautche Levin, you will begin by not setting foot outside of this chamber, either you or the child, one step in the garden and we are done for. That is true. Monsieur Madeleine resumed Fautche Levin. You have arrived at a very auspicious moment. I mean to say a very inauspicious moment. One of the ladies is very ill. This will prevent them from looking much in our direction. It seems that she is dying. The prayers of the forty hours are being said. The whole community is in confusion. That occupies them. The one who is on the point of departure is a saint. In fact, we are all saints here. All the difference between them and me is that they say our cell and that I say my cabin. The prayers for the dying are to be said and then the prayers for the dead. We shall be at peace here for today, but I will not answer for tomorrow. Still, observed Jean Valjean, this cottage is in the niche of the wall. It is hidden by a sort of ruin. There are trees. It is not visible from the convent. And I add that the nuns never come near it. Well, said Jean Valjean, the interrogation mark which accentuated this well signified. It seems to me that one may remain concealed here. It was to this interrogation point that Fochilevent responded. There are the little girls. What little girls? asked Jean Valjean. Just as Fochilevent opened his mouth to explain the words which he had uttered, a bell emitted one stroke. The nun is dead, said he. There is the knell. And he made a sign to Jean Valjean to listen. The bell struck a second time. It is the knell, M. Madeleine. The bell will continue to strike once a minute for 24 hours, until the body is taken from the church. You see they play. At recreation hours it suffices to have a ball roll aside, to send them all hither, in spite of prohibitions, to hunt and rummage for it all about here. Those cherubs are devils. Who? asked Jean Valjean. The little girls. You would be very quickly discovered. They would shriek, oh, a man! There is no danger today. There will be no recreation hour. The day will be entirely devoted to prayers. You hear the bell. As I told you, a stroke each minute. It is the death knell. I understand, Father Fochilevent. There are pupils. And Jean Valjean thought to himself, here is Cosette's education already provided. Fochilevent exclaimed, Pardine, there are little girls indeed, and they would ball around you, and they would rush off. To be a man here is to have the plague. You see how they fasten a bell to my paw, as though I were a wild beast. Jean Valjean fell into more and more profound thought. This convent would be our salvation, he murmured. Then he raised his voice. Yes, the difficulty is to remain here. No, said Fochilevent. The difficulty is to get out. Jean Valjean felt the blood rush back to his heart. To get out? Yes, Monsieur Madeleine. In order to return here it is first necessary to get out. And after waiting until another stroke of the knell had sounded, Fochilevent went on. You must not be found here in this fashion. Whence come you? For me you fall from heaven, because I know you, but the nuns require one to enter by the door. All at once they heard a rather complicated peeling from another bell. Ah, said Fochilevent. They are ringing up the vocal mothers. They are going to the chapter. They always hold a chapter when anyone dies. She died at Daybreak. People generally do die at Daybreak. But cannot you get out by the way in which you entered? Come, I do not ask for the sake of questioning you, but how did you get in? Jean Valjean turned pale. The very thought of descending again into that terrible street made him shudder. You make your way out of a forest filled with tigers, and once out of it, imagine a friendly council that shall advise you to return thither. Jean Valjean pictured to himself the whole police force still engaged in swarming in that corridor, agents on the watch, sentinels everywhere, frightful fists extended toward his collar, javers at the corner of the intersection of the streets perhaps. Impossible, said he. Father Fochilevent, say that I fell from the sky. But I believe it, I believe it, retorted Fochilevent. You have no need to tell me that. The good God must have taken you in his hand for the purpose of getting a good look at you close to, and then dropped you. Only he meant to place you in a man's convent. He made a mistake. Come, there goes another peel. That is to order the porter to go and inform the municipality that the dead doctor is to come here and view a corpse. All that is the ceremony of dying. These good ladies are not at all fond of that visit. A doctor is a man who does not believe in anything. He lifts the veil. Sometimes he lifts something else, too. How quickly they have had the doctor summon this time. What is the matter? Your little one is still asleep. What is her name? Cosette. She is your daughter? You are her grandfather, that is? Yes. It will be easy enough for her to get out of here. I have my service door, which opens on the courtyard. I knock. The porter opens. I have my vintage basket on my back. The child is in it. I go out. Father Foshilevon goes out with his basket, that is perfectly natural. You will tell the child to keep very quiet. She will be under the cover. I will leave her for whatever time is required with a good old friend, a fruit-seller whom I know, in the Rue Cheminvers, who is deaf and who has a little bed. I will shout in the fruit-seller's ear that she is a niece of mine, and that she is to keep her for me until tomorrow. Then the little one will re-enter with you, for I will contrive to have you re-enter. It must be done. But how will you manage to get out? Jean Valjean shook his head. No one must see me. The whole point lies there, Father Foshilevon. Find some means of getting me out in a basket under cover, like Cosette. Foshilevon scratched the lobe of his ear with the middle finger of his left hand, a sign of serious embarrassment. A third peel created a diversion. That is the dead doctor taking his departure, said Foshilevon. He has taken a look and said, she is dead. That is well. When the doctor has signed the passport for Paradise, the undertaker's company sends a coffin. If it is a mother, the mother's lay her out. If she is a sister, the sister's lay her out. After which I nail her up. That forms a part of my gardener's duty. A gardener is a bit of a grave-digger. She is placed in a lower hall of the church, which communicates with the street, and into which no man may enter save the doctor of the dead. I don't count the undertaker's men and myself as men. It is in that hall that I nail up the coffin. The undertaker's men come and get it, and whip up, coachmen. That's the way one goes to heaven. They fetch a box with nothing in it. They take it away again with something in it. That's what a burial is like. Day profundes. A horizontal ray of sunshine lightly touched the face of the sleeping Cosette, who lay with her mouth vaguely open, and had the air of an angel drinking in the light. Jean Valjean had fallen to gazing at her. He was no longer listening to Fochalevant. That one is not listened to is no reason for preserving silence. The good old gardener went on tranquilly with his babble. The grave is dug in the Vosgérard Cemetery. They declare that they are going to suppress that Vosgérard Cemetery. It is an ancient cemetery which is outside the regulations, which has no uniform and which is going to retire. It is a shame for its convenient. I have a friend there, Father Misty-en, the Gravedinger. The nuns here possess one privilege. It is to be taken into that cemetery at nightfall. There is a special permission from the Prefecture on their behalf. But how many events have happened since yesterday? Mother crucifixion is dead and Father Madeleine is buried, said Jean Valjean, smiling sadly. Fochalevant caught the word. Goodness, if you were here for good it would be a real burial. A fourth peel burst out. Fochalevant hastily detached the belled kneecap from its nail and buckled it on his knee again. This time it is for me, the mother Priorus wants me. Good, now I am pricking myself on the tongue of my buckle. Monsieur Madeleine, don't stir from here and wait for me. Something new has come up. If you are hungry there is wine, bread, and cheese. And he hastened out of the hut, crying, coming, coming. Jean Valjean watched him hurrying across the garden as fast as his crooked leg would permit, casting a side-long glance by the way on his melon-patch. Less than ten minutes later, Father Fochalevant, whose bell put the nuns in his road to flight, tapped gently at a door and a gentle voice replied, forever, forever. That is to say, enter. The door was the one leading to the parlor reserved for seeing the gardener on business. This parlor rejoined the chapter hall. The Priorus, seated on the only chair in the parlor, was waiting for Fochalevant. End of Book 8, Chapter 1. Recording by Kalinda in Lüneburg, Germany, on March 13, 2009. Chapter 2 of Book 8 of Les Miserables, Volume 2 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 Linda McDaniel, Les Miserables, Volume 2 by Victor Hugo, translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood. Book 8. Cemetery's Take That, which is committed them. Chapter 2. Fochalevant in the Presence of a Difficulty. It is the peculiarity of certain persons and certain professions, notably priests and nuns, to wear a grave and agitated air on critical occasions. At the moment when Fochalevant entered, this double form of preoccupation was imprinted on the countenance of the Priorus, who was that wise and charming mademoiselle de Blemure, mother innocent, who was ordinarily cheerful. The gardener made a timid bow and remained at the door of the cell. The Priorus, who was telling her beads, raised her eyes and said, Ah, it is you, Father Fovant. This abbreviation had been adopted in the convent. Fochalevant bowed again. Father Fovant, I have sent for you. Here I am, Reverend Mother. I have something to say to you. And so have I, said Fochalevant, with a boldness which caused him inward terror. I have something to say to the very Reverend Mother. The Priorus stared at him. Ah, you have a communication to make to me. A request. Very well, speak. Goodman Fochalevant, the ex-notary, belonged to the category of peasants who have assurance. A certain clever ignorance constitutes a force. You do not distrust it, and you are caught by it. Fochalevant had been a success during the something more than two years which he had passed in the convent. Always solitary and busyed about his gardening, he had nothing else to do than to indulge his curiosity. As he was at a distance from all those veiled women passing to and fro, he saw before him only an agitation of shadows. By dint of attention and sharpness he had succeeded in clothing all those phantoms with flesh and those corpses were alive for him. He was like a deaf man whose sight grows keener, and like a blind man whose hearing becomes more acute. He had applied himself to riddling out the significance of the different peals, and he had succeeded so that this taciturn and inning maddable cloister possessed no secrets for him. The sphinx babbled all her secrets in his ear. Fochalevant knew awe and concealed awe that constituted his art. The whole convent thought him stupid, a great merit in religion. The vocal mothers made much of Fochalevant. He was a curious mute. He inspired confidence. Moreover, he was regular and never went out except for well demonstrated requirements of the orchard and vegetable garden. This discretion of conduct had endured to his credit. Nonetheless, he had set two men to chattering. The porter in the convent, and he knew the singularities of their parlor, and the gravedigger at the cemetery, and he was acquainted with the peculiarities of their sepulcher. In this way he possessed a double light on the subject of these nuns, one as to their life, the other as to their death. But he did not abuse his knowledge. The congregation thought a great deal of him. Old, lame, blind to everything, probably a little deaf into the bargain, what qualities they would have found it difficult to replace him. The good man, with the assurance of a person who feels that he is appreciated, entered into a rather diffuse and very deep rustic harangue to the reverend priorus. He talked a long time about his age, his infirmities, the surcharge of years counting double for him henceforth, of the increasing demands of his work, and of the great size of the garden, of nights which must be past, like the last for instance, when he had been obliged to put straw mats over the melon beds because of the moon, and he wound up as follows, that he had a brother, the priorus made a movement, a brother no longer young, a second movement on the part of the priorus, but one expressive of reassurance, that if he might be permitted, this brother would come and live with him and help him, that he was an excellent gardener, that the community would receive from him good service better than his own, that otherwise if his brother were not admitted, as he, the elder, felt that his health was broken and that he was insufficient for the work, he should be obliged greatly to his regret to go away, and that his brother had a little daughter whom he would bring with him, who might be reared for God in the house, and who might, who knows, become a nun some day. When he had finished speaking the priorus stayed the slipping of her rosary between her fingers and said to him, Could you procure a stout iron bar between now and this evening? For what purpose? To serve as a lever. Yes, Reverend Mother," replied Fochelovant, the priorus, without adding a word, rose and entered the adjoining room, which was the hall of the chapter and where the vocal mothers were probably assembled. Fochelovant was left alone. Chapter 3 of Book 8 of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Recording by Linda McDaniel, Atlanta, Georgia, January 2009. Chapter 3 of Book 8 of Les Miserables, Volume 2 by Victor Hugo. This is LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lisa Kenning. Lame is a Rob, Volume 2 by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood. Book 8, The Wicked Poor Man. Chapter 3, Mother Innocent. About a quarter of an hour elapsed. The priorus returned and seated herself once more on her chair. The two interlocutors seemed preoccupied. We will present a stenographic report of the dialogue which then ensued to the best of our ability. Father Fovent, Reverend Mother, do you know the chapel? I have a little cage there where I hear the mass in the offices. And you have been in the choir in pursuance of your duties? Two or three times. There is a stone to be raised. Heavy? The slap of the pavement which is at the side of the altar. The slap which closes the vault? Yes. It would be a good thing to have two men for it. Mother Ascension, who is as strong as a man, will help you. A woman is never a man. We have only a woman here to help you. Each one does what he can. Because Dom Marbalan gives four hundred and seventeen epistles of Saint Bernard, while Merlonis Horses only gives three hundred and sixty-seven. I do not despise Merlonis Horses. Where do I? Marriage consists in working according to one's strength. A cloister is not a dockyard. And a woman is not a man. But my brother is the strong one, though. And can you get a lever? That is the only sort of key that fits that sort of door. There is a ring in the stone. I will put the lever through it. And the stone is so arranged that it swings on a pivot. That is good, Reverend Mother. I will open the vault. And the four Mother Precenters will help you. And when the vault is open, it must be closed again. Will that be all? No. Give me your orders, very Reverend Mother. Fulvent, we have confidence in you. I am here to do anything you wish, and to hold your peace about everything. Yes, Reverend Mother. When the vault is open, I will close it again. But before that, what, Reverend Mother? Something must be lowered into it. A silence ensued. Priorists, after a pout of the underlip which resembled hesitation, broke it. Father Fulvent, Reverend Mother. You know that a mother died this morning? No. Did you not hear the bell? Nothing can be heard at the bottom of the garden. Really? I can hardly distinguish my own signal. She died at daybreak. And then the wind is not blowing in my direction this morning. It was Mother Crucifixion, a blessed woman. Priorists paused, moved her lips as though in mental prayer, and resumed. Three years ago, Madame de Besson, a Jansenist, turned Orthodox, merely from having seen Mother Crucifixion at prayer. Ah, yes, now I hear the knell, Reverend Mother. The mothers have taken her to the dead room, which opens on the church. I know. Know their man, then you can, or must enter that chamber. See to that. A fine sight it would be to see a man enter the dead room. More often. Hey, more often. What do you say? I say more often. More often than what? Reverend Mother, I did not say more often than what. I said more often. I don't understand you. Why do you say more often? In order to speak like you, Reverend Mother. But I did not say more often. At that moment, nine o'clock struck. At nine o'clock in the morning, and at all hours, praised and adored to be the most holy sacrament of the altar, said the Priorus. Amen, said François Levant. The clock struck opportunely. It cut more often, short. It is probable that had it not been for this, the Priorus and François Levant would never have unraveled that skine. François Levant moped his forehead. The Priorus indulged in another little inward murmur, probably sacred, then raised her voice. In her lifetime, Mother Crucifixion made converts. After her death, she will perform miracles. She will, replied François Levant, falling into step and striving not to flinch again. Father Fouvent, the community has been blessed in Mother Crucifixion. No doubt it is not granted to everyone to die, like Cardinal de Baroul, while saying the Holy Mass, and to breath forth their souls to God, while pronouncing these words, Hank Iguatur Oblationum. But without attaining such happiness, Mother Crucifixion's death was very precious. She retained her consciousness to the very last moment. She spoke to us, then she spoke to the angels. She gave us her last commands. If you had a little more faith, and if you could have been in herself, she would have cured your leg merely by touching it. She smiled. We felt that she was regaining her life in God. There was something of paradise in that death. François Levant thought that it was an orison which she was finishing. Amen, said he. Father Fouvent, what the dead wish must be done? The priors took off several beads of her chaplet. François Levant held his piece. She went on, I have consulted upon this point many ecclesiastics laboring in our Lord, who occupy themselves in the exercises of the clerical life, and who bear wonderful fruit. Reverend Mother, you can hear the NL much better here than in the garden. Besides, she is more than a dead woman, she is a saint. Like yourself, Reverend Mother. She slept in her coffin for twenty years by express permission of our Holy Father, Pius VII, the one who crowned the one apart. For a clever man like François Levant, this delusion was an awkward one. Fortunately, the priors, completely absorbed in her own thoughts, did not hear it. She continued. Father Fouvent, Reverend Mother, Saint Diderus, Archbishop of Capetochia, desired that this single word might be inscribed on his tomb. Acorus, which signifies a worm of the earth. This was done. Is this true? Yes, Reverend Mother. The blessed mesocane, Abbot of Aquila, wished to be buried beneath the gallows. This was done. That is true. Saint Terenches, Bishop of Porte, where the mouth of the Tiber empties into the sea, requested that on his tomb might be engraved the sign which was placed on the graves of parasites in the hope that passers-by would spit on his tomb. This was done. The dead must be obeyed. So be it. The body of Bernard Gaidanus, born in France near Rochabille, was, as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, born to the church of the Dominicans in Limoge, although Bernard Gaidanus was Bishop of Thay in Spain, can the contrary be confirmed? For that matter, no, Reverend Mother. The fact is attested by Plaintivier de la Fausse. Several beads of the chaplet were told off, still in silence. The priorists resumed. Father Prevent, mother crucifixion, will be interred in the coffin in which she has slept for the last twenty years. That is just. It is a continuation of her slumber. So I shall have to nail up that coffin? Yes. And we are to reject the undertaker's coffin. Precisely. I am at the orders of the very Reverend Community. The Four Mother Precenters will assist you. In nailing up the coffin, I do not need them. No, in lowering the coffin. Where? Into the vault. What vault? Under the altar. Fauch Levant started. The vault under the altar? Under the altar. But you will have an iron bar. Yes, but you will raise the stone with the bar by means of the ring. But the dead must be obeyed, to be buried in the vault under the altar of the chapel, not to go to profane earth, to remain there in death where she prayed while living. Such was the last wish of mother crucifixion. She asked it of us. That is to say, commanded us. But it is forbidden. Forbidden by men, enjoined by God. What if it became known? We have confidence in you. Oh, I am a stone in your walls. The chapter assembled, the vocal mothers, whom I have just consulted again, and who are now deliberating, have decided that mother crucifixion shall be buried, according to her wish, in her own coffin under our altar. Think, Father Proven, if she were to work miracles here, what a glory of God for the community, and miracles issued from tombs. But Reverend Mother, if the agent of the Sanitary Commission, Saint Benoitu, in the matter of sepulchre, resisted Constantine Pogonatus. But the commissary police, Shono de Mer, one of the seven German kings who entered among the Gauls under the empire of Constantius, expressly recognized the right of nuns to be buried in religion. That is to say, beneath the altar. But the inspector from the perfecture. The world is nothing in the presence of the cross. Martin, the eleventh general of the Carthusians, gave to his order this device. Stat, crew, doom, volveteur, orbus. Amen. said François Levant, who imperturbably extricated himself in this manner from the dilemma whenever he heard Latin. Any audience suffices for a person who has held his peace too long. On the day when the rhetorician, Jim Nestorius, left his prison, burying in his body many dilemmas and numerous syllogisms which had struck in, he halted in front of the first tree which he came to, harangued it, and made very great efforts to convince it. The priorus, who was usually subjected to the barrier of silence, and whose reservoir was overfull, rose and exclaimed with the lequesty of a dam which has broken away. I have on my right Benoit, and on my left Bernard. Who was Bernard? The first abbot of Clairvoix. Fontaine, in Burgundy, is a country that is blessed because it gave him birth. His father was named Thessalon, and his mother Elyse. He began at Citeau to end in Clairvoix. He was ordained abbot by the Bishop of Chelan-sur-Swan, Guillaume de Champot. He had seven hundred novices, and founded a hundred and sixty monasteries. He overthrew Abaylar at the Council of Seine in 1140, and Pierre de Bray and Henry his disciple, and another sort of erring spirits who were called the Apostolics. He confounded Arnault de Brescia, darted lightning at the Monc Raoul, the murderer of the Jews, dominated the Council of Rhyme in 1148, caused the condemnation of Gilbert de Poirea, Bishop of Poitouais, caused the condemnation of Ion de La Toile, arranged the disputes of Princess, enlightened King Louis the Young, advised Pope Eugene III, regulated the temple, preached the crusade, performed 250 miracles during his lifetime, and as many as 39 in one day. Who was Benoit? He was the Patriarch of Mont-Cassin. He was the second founder of the Sainte Clostrault. He was the Basil of the West. His order has produced 40 popes, 200 cardinals, 50 patriarchs, 1600 archbishops, 4,600 bishops, four emperors, 12 empresses, 46 kings, 41 queens, 3,600 canonized saints, and has been in existence for 1400 years. On one side Saint Bernard, on the other the Agent of the Sanitary Department, on one side Saint Benoit, on the other the Inspector of Public Ways. The State, the road commissioners, the public undertaker, regulations, the administration, what do we know of all that? There is not a chance passed by who would not be dignit to see how we are treated. We have not even the right to give our dust to Jesus Christ. Your Sanitary Department is a revolutionary invention. God subordinated to the commissary of police, such is the age. Silence for vant. Fauch levant was but ill at ease under this shower bath. The priors continued. No one doubts the right of the monastery to sepulcher. Only fanatics and those in error deny it. We live in times of terrible confusion. We do not know that which it is necessary to know, and we know that which we should ignore. We are ignorant and impious. In this age there exist people who do not distinguish between the very great Saint Bernard and the Saint Bernard dominated of the poor Catholics. A certain good ecclesiastic who lived in the 13th century. Others are so blasphemous as to compare the scaffold of Louis XVI to the cross of Jesus Christ. Louis XVI was merely a king. Let us beware of God. There is no longer just nor unjust. The name of Voltaire is known, but not the name of Caesar de Basse. Nevertheless, Caesar de Basse is a man of blessed memory, and Voltaire, one of un blessed memory. The last archbishop, the Cardinal de Peregore, did not even know that Charles de Gondren succeeded to berule, and François Bourgeois to Gondin, and Jean-François Saint-Nolte to Bourgeois, and Father Saint-Marc to Jean-François Saint-Holle. The name of Father Cotan is known, not because he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the oratory, but because he furnished Henry XIV, the Huguenot King, with the material for an oath. That which pleases people of the world in Saint-François de Salais is that he cheated at play, and then religion is attacked. Why? Because there have been bad priests. Because Sagaterra, Bishop of Gap, was a brother of Salon, Bishop of Embrun, and because both of them followed Mamal. What has that to do with the question? Does that prevent Martin de Tour from being a saint, and giving half of his cloak to a beggar? They persecute the saints. They shut their eyes to the truth. Darkness is the rule. The most ferocious beasts are beasts which are blind. No one thinks of hell as a reality. Oh, how wicked people are! By order of the king signifies today. By order of the revolution. One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the dead. A holy death is prohibited. Burial is a civil matter. This is horrible. St. Leo II wrote two special letters, one to Pierre Notaire, the other to the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of combating and rejecting, in questions touching the dead, the authority of the exarch and the supremacy of the emperor. Gauthier, Bishop of Salon, held his own in this matter against Otho, Duke of Burgundy. The ancient magistracy agreed with him. In former times we had voices in the chapter, even on matters of the day. The abbot of Citeau, the general of the order, was counsellor by right of birth to the parliament of Burgundy. We too would be pleased with our dead. It is not the body of Saint Benoit himself in France, in the abbey of Fleury, called Saint Benoit-sur-Lois, although he died in Italy at Montquesen, on Saturday the 21st of the month of March of the year 543. All this is incontestable. I have whore psalms-singers, I hate priors, I execrate heretics, but I should detest yet more anyone who should maintain the contrary. One has only to read Arnoil Wyon, Gabriel Bustelon, Trithymus, Moralex, and Dom Luce Dashery. The priors took breath, then turned to Foch Levant. Is it settled, Father Fouven? It is settled, Reverend Mother. We may depend on you. I will obey. That is well. I am entirely devoted to the convent. That is understood. You will close the coffin. The sisters will carry it to the chapel. The office for the dead will then be set. Then we shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock and midnight you will come with your iron bar. All will be done in the most profound secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four mother-presenters, mother Ascension and yourself. And the sister at the post? She will not turn round. But she will hear. She will not listen. Besides, what the cloister knows the world learns not. A pause ensued. The priors went on. You will remove your bell. It is not necessary that the sister at the post should perceive your presence. Reverend Mother? What, Father Fouven? Has the doctor for the dead paid his visit? He will pay it at four o'clock to-day. The peal which orders the doctor for the dead to be summoned has already been wrong. But you do not understand any of the peals. I pay no attention to any but my own. That is well, Father Fouven. Reverend Mother, a lever at least six feet long will be required. Where will you obtain it? Where gratings are not lacking, iron bars are not lacking. I have my heap of old iron at the bottom of the garden. About three quarters of an hour before midnight. Do not forget. Reverend Mother? What? If you were ever to have any other jobs of this sort, my brother is the strongman for you. A perfect Turk. You will do it as speedily as possible. I cannot work very fast. I'm in firm. That is why I require an assistant. I limp. To limp is no sin, and perhaps it is a blessing. The Emperor Henry II, who combated Antipope Gregory and re-established Benoit VIII, has two surnames. The Saint and the Lame. Two Sertauts are a good thing. Reverend Fochleval, who really was a little hard of hearing. Now that I think of it, Father Fouven, let us give a whole hour to it. That is not too much. Be near the principal altar with your iron bar at eleven o'clock. The office begins at midnight. Everything must have been completed a good quarter of an hour before that. I will do anything to prove my zeal towards the community. These are my orders. I am to nail up the coffin. At eleven o'clock exactly, I am to be in the chapel. The mother precenters will be there. Mother ascension will be there. Two men would be better. However, never mind. I shall have my lever. We will open the vault. We will lower the coffin. And we will close the vault again. After which there will be no trace of anything. The government will have no suspicion. Thus all has been arranged, Reverend Mother. No! What else remains? The empty coffin remains. This produced a pause. Frosch Levant meditated. The priors meditated. What is to be done with that coffin, Father Fouven? It will be given to the earth. Empty? Another silence, Frosch Levant made, with his left hand, that sort of a gesture which dismisses the troublesome subject. Reverend Mother, I am the one who is to nail up the coffin in the basement of the church, and no one can enter there but myself, and I will cover the coffin with the pall. Yes, but the bearers, when they place it in the hearse and lower it into the grave, will be sure to feel that there is nothing in it. Ah, the de, exclaimed Frosch Levant. The priors began to make the sign of the cross, and looked fixedly at the gardener. The veal stuck fast in his throat. He made haste to improvise an expedient to make her forget the oath. I will put earth in the coffin, Reverend Mother. That will produce the effect of a corpse. You are right. Earth, that is the same thing as man. You will manage the empty coffin. I will make that my special business. The priors' face, up to that moment, troubled and clouded, grew serene once more. She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior to him. Frosch Levant went towards the door, as he was on the point of passing out, the priors raised her voice gently. I am pleased with you, Father Fouven. Bring your brother to me to-morrow, after the burial, and tell him to fetch his daughter.