 Chapter 2 of Book 6 of Les Misérables Vol. 5 by Victor Hugo. To realize one's dream, to whom is this accorded, there must be elections for this in heaven, we are all candidates, unknown to ourselves, the angels' vote. Cosette and Marius had been elected. Cosette, both at the mayor's office and at church, was dazzling and touching. Toussaint, assisted by Nicolette, had dressed her. Cosette wore a petticoat of white taffeta, her robe of beau scupre, a veil of English point, a necklace of fine pearls, a wreath of orange flowers. All this was white, and from the midst of that whiteness she beamed forth. It was an exquisite candor, expanding, and becoming transfigured in the light. One would have pronounced her a virgin on the point of turning into a goddess. Marius' handsome hair was lustrous and perfumed. Here and there beneath the thick curls, pale lines, the scars of the barricade were visible. The grandfather, haughty, with head held high, amalgamating more than ever in his toilette and his manners all the elegances of the epoch of Borat, as accorded Cosette. He took the place of Jean Verjean, who, on account of his arm being still in a sling, could not give his hand to the bride. Jean Verjean, dressed in black, followed them with a smile. Monsieur Fourche-Levant, said the grandfather to him, This is a fine day. I vote for the end of afflictions and sorrows. Henceforth there must be no sadness anywhere. Pardue, our decreed joy! Evil has no right to exist, that there should be any unhappy men, is in sooth a disgrace to the azure of the sky. Evil does not come from man who is good at bottom. All human miseries have, for their capital and central government, hell, otherwise known as the devil's tweedery. Good, here I am uttering demagogical words. As far as I am concerned, I have no longer any political opinions. Let all me be rich, that is to say, mirthful, and I can find myself to that. When at the conclusion of all the ceremonies, after having pronounced before the mayor and before the priest all possible yeses, after having signed the registers at the municipality and at the sacristy, after having exchanged their rings, after having knelt side by side under the pall of white moor in the smoke of the censer, they arrived, hand in hand, admired and envied by all, Marius in black, sheen white, preceded by the Suisse, with the epaulet of a colonel, tapping the pavement with his hull-beard, between two rows of astonished spectators at the portals of the church, both leaves of which were thrown wide open, ready to enter their carriage again, and all being finished, Cosette still could not believe that it was real. She looked at Marius, she looked at the crowd, she looked at the sky, it seemed as though she feared that she should wake up from her dream. Her amazed and uneasy air added something indescribably enchanting to her beauty. They entered the same carriage to return home, Marius beside Cosette, M. Gélenormand and Jean-Vargent sat opposite them. Anche-Gélenormand had withdrawn one degree and was in the second vehicle. My children, said the grandfather, here you are, M. LeBaronne and M. LeBaronne, with an income of thirty-thousand livres, and Cosette, nestling close to Marius, caressed his ear with an angelic whisper, so it is true, my name is Marius, I am Madame Thau. These two creatures were resplendent, they had reached that irrevocable and irrecoverable moment at the dazzling intersection of all youth and all joy. They realized the verses of Jean-Prouvert, they were forty years old, taken together. It was marriage, sublimated, these two children were two lilies, they did not see each other, they did not contemplate each other. Cosette perceived Marius in the midst of a glory, Marius perceived Cosette on an altar. And on that altar, and in that glory, the two apotheoses mingling in the background, one knows not how, behind a cloud for Cosette, in a flash for Marius, there was the ideal thing, the real thing, the meeting of the kiss and the dream, the nutchial pillow. All the torments through which they had passed came back to them in intoxication. It seemed to them that their sorrows, their sleepless nights, their tears, their anguish, their terrors, their despair converted into caresses, and rays of light rendered still more charming the charming hour which was approaching, and that their griefs were but so many handmaidens who were preparing the toilet of joy. How good it is to have suffered! Their unhappiness formed a halo around their happiness. The long agony of their love was terminating in an ascension. It was the same enchantment in two souls, tinged with voluptuousness in Marius, and with modesty in Cosette. They said to each other in low tones, We will go back to take a look at our little garden in the Rue Plume. The folds of Cosette's gown lay across Marius. Such a day is in an ineffable mixture of dream and of reality. One possesses, and one supposes, One still has time before one to divine. The emotion on that day of being at midday and of dreaming of midnight is indescribable. The delights of these two hearts overflowed upon the crowd, and inspired the passers-by with cheerfulness. People halted in the Rue Saint-Antoine, in front of Saint Paul, to gaze through the windows of the carriage at the orange flowers quivering on Cosette's head. Then they returned home to the Rue des Fillets du Carvers. Marius, triumphant and radiant, mounted side by side with Cosette, the staircase of which he had been born in a dying condition. The poor, who had trooped to the door, and who shared their purses, blessed them. There were flowers everywhere. The house was no less fragrant than the church. After the incense, roses. They thought they heard voices caroling in the infinite. They had God in their hearts. Destiny appeared to them like a ceiling of stars. Above their heads they beheld the light of a rising sun. All at once the clock struck. Marius glanced at Cosette's charming bare arm, and at the rosy things which were vaguely visible through the lace of her bodice, and Cosette, intercepting Marius's glance, blushed to her very hair. Quite a number of old family-friends of the Gélo-Normon family had been invited. They pressed about Cosette. Each one vied with the rest in saluting her as Madame L'Aparronne. The officer, Théo Doulgile-Normon, now a captain, had come from Chartres, where he was stationed in Garrison, to be present at the wedding of his cousin, Pour Merci. Cosette did not recognize him. He on his side, habituated as he was to have women consider him handsome, retained no more recollection of Cosette than if any other woman. How right I was not to believe in that story about the Lancer, said Father Gélo-Normon to himself. Cosette had never been more tender with Jean-Vargent. She was in unison with Father Gélo-Normon. While he erected joy into aphorisms and maxims, she exhaled goodness like a perfume. Happiness desires that all the world should be happy. She regained, for the purpose of addressing Jean-Vargent, the inflections of voice belonging to the time when she was a little girl. She caressed him with her smile. A banquet had been spread in the dining-room. Illumination as brilliant as the daylight is the necessary seasoning of a great joy. Mist and obscurity are not accepted by the happy. They do not consent to be black. The night, yes, the shadows, no. If there is no sun, one must be made. The dining-room was full of gay things. In the center, above the white and glittering table, was a Venetian luster with flat plates, with all sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched amid the candles. Around the chandelier, Gironde d'Hollais, on the wall, sconces with triple and quintuple branches, mirrors, silverware, glassware, plate, porcelain, pheons, pottery, gold, and silversmith's work, all was sparkling and gay. The empty spaces between the candelabra were filled in with bouquets, so that where there was not a light there was a flower. In the ante-chamber, three violins and a flute softly played quartets by Haydn. Jean-Valjean had seated himself on a chair in the drawing-room, behind the door, the leaf of which folded back upon him in such a manner as to nearly conceal him. A few moments before they sat down to table, Cosette came, as though inspired by a sudden whim, and made him a deep curtsy. Spreading out her bridal toilet with both hands, and with the tenderly roguish glance, she asked him, Father, are you satisfied? Yes, says Jean-Valjean, I am content. Well then, laugh! Jean-Valjean began to laugh. A few moments later, Basque announced that dinner was served. The guests, preceded by M. Gélenormand, with Cosette on his arm, entered the dining-room, and arranged themselves in the proper order around the table. Two large armchairs figured on the right and left of the bride, the first for M. Gélenormand, the other for Jean-Valjean, M. Gélenormand took a seat. The other armchair remained empty. They looked about for M. Fauchelevant. He was no longer there. M. Gélenormand questioned Basque, Do you know where M. Fauchelevant is? Sir, replied Basque, I do precisely. M. Fauchelevant tell me to say to you, sir, that he was suffering, his injured hand was painting him somewhat, and that he could not dine with M. Le Baron and M. Le Baronne, that he begged to be excused that he would come to-morrow. He has just taken his departure. That empty armchair chilled the effusion of the wedding-feast for a moment. But if M. Fauchelevant was absent, M. Gélenormand was present, and the grandfather beamed for two. He affirmed that M. Fauchelevant had done well to retire early if he were suffering, but that it was only a slight ailment. This declaration sufficed. Moreover, what is an obscure corner in such a submersion of joy? Cosette and Marius were passing through one of those egotistical and blessed moments when no other faculty is left to a person than that of receiving happiness. And then an idea occurred to M. Gélenormand. Partieu, this armchair is empty. Come hither, Marius. Your aunt will permit it, although she has a right to you. This armchair is for you. That is legal and delightful. Fortu-natus, beside fortu-nata. Applause from the whole table. Marius took Jean-Vargeant's place beside Cosette, and things fell out, so that Cosette, who had at first been saddened by Jean-Vargeant's absence, ended by being satisfied with it. From the moment when Marius took his place, and was the substitute, Cosette would not have regretted God himself. She set her sweet little foot, shot in white satin, on Marius's foot. The armchair being occupied, M. Vochelavan was obliterated, and nothing was lacking. And five minutes afterward, the whole table, from one end to the other, was laughing with all the animation of forgetfulness. That dessert, M. Vochelavan, rising to his feet, with a glass of champagne in his hand, only half full, so that the palsy of his eighty years might not cause an overflow, proposed the health of the married pair. You shall not escape two sermons, he exclaimed. This morning you had one from the curée. This evening you shall have one from your grandfather. Listen to me. I will give you a bit of advice. Adore each other. I do not make a pack of gyrations. I go straight to the mark. Be happy. In all creation only the turtle doves are wise. Philosophers say moderate your joys. I say give rain to your joys. Be as much smitten with each other as fiends. Be in a rage about it. The philosophers talk stuff and nonsense. I should like to stuff their philosophy down their gullets again. Can there be too many perfumes, too many open rose buds, too many nightingale singing, too many green leaves, too much aurora in life? Can people love each other too much? Can people please each other too much? Take care, Estelle, thou art too pretty. Have a care, Nimerine, thou art too handsome. Find stupidity in soothe. Can people enchant each other too much, cajole each other too much, charm each other too much? Can one be too much alive, too happy? Moderate your joys. Ah, indeed, down with the philosophers. Wisdom consists in jubilation. Make merry. Let us make merry. Are we happy because we are good, or are we good because we are happy? Is the sensi diamond called the sensi because it belonged to Harley de Sensi, or because it weighs six hundred carats? I know nothing about it. Life is full of such problems. The important point is to possess the sensi and happiness. Let us be happy without quibbley and quirking. Let us obey the sun blindly. What is the sun? It is love. He who says love says woman. Ah! Ah! Behold omnipotence women! Ask that demagogue of Amarius if he is not the slave of that little tyrant of a coset, and of his own free will, too, the coward. Woman! There is no Robespierre who keeps his place, but women reigns. I am no longer royalist except toward that royalty. What is Adam, the kingdom of Eve? No eighty-nine for Eve. There has been the royal scepter surmounted by a fleur-de-lis. There has been the imperial scepter surmounted by a globe. There has been the scepter of Charlemagne, which was of iron. There has been the scepter of Louis the Great, which was of gold. The revolution twisted them between its thumb and forefinger. Hey, penny straws! It is done with. It is broken. It lies on the earth. There is no longer any scepter. But make me a revolution against that little embroidered handkerchief, which smells of patchouli. I should like to see you do it. Try. Why is it so solid? Because it is a googah. Ah! You are the nineteenth century? Well what then? And we have been as foolish as you. Do not imagine that you have affected much change in the universe, because your tripgallant is called the cholera marbus. And because your purée is called the cachuca. In fact, the women must always be loved. I defy you to escape from that. These friends are our angels. Yes, love, women, the kiss forms a circle from which I defy you to escape. And for my own part, I should be only too happy to re-enter it. Which of you has seen the planet Venus? The coquette of the abyss, the cillamenate of the ocean. Rise in the infinite, calming all here below. The ocean is a rough alchestese. Well, grumble as he will, when Venus appears he is forced to smile. That brute beast submits. We are all made so. Wrath, tempest, claps of thunder, foam to the very ceiling. A woman enters on the scene. A planet rises, flat on your face. Marius was fighting six months ago. Today he is married. That is well. Yes, Marius. Yes, Gazette, you are in the right. Exist boldly for each other. Make us burst with rage that we cannot do the same. Idealize each other. Catch in your beaks all the tiny blades of felicity that exist on the earth. And arrange yourselves a nest for life. Pardee! To love! To be loved! What a fine miracle when one is young. Don't imagine that you invented that. I too have had my dream. I too have meditated. I too have sighed. I too have had a moonlight soul. Love is a child, six thousand years old. Love has the right to a long white beard. Methuselum is a street Arab beside Cupid. For sixty centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by loving. The devil who is cunning took to hating man. Man who is still more cunning took to loving women. In this way he does more good than the devil does him harm. This craft was discovered in the days of the terrestrial paradise. The invention is old, my friends, but it is perfectly new. Profit by it. Be Daphnis and Chloe while waiting to become Philemon and Boussy. Manage so that, when you are with each other, nothing shall be lacking to you, and that Cosette may be the sun for Marius, and that Marius may be the universe to Cosette. Cosette, let your fine weather be the smile of your husband. Marius, let your rain be your wife's tears, and let it never rain in your household. You have filched the winning number in the lottery. You have gained the great prize. Guard it well. Keep it under lock and key. Do not squander it. Adore each other and snap your fingers at all the rest. Believe what I say to you. It is good sense, and good sense cannot lie. Be a religion to each other. Each man has his own fashion of adoring God. Saperlotte, the best way to adore God is to love one's wife. I love thee. That's my catechism. He who loves his orthodox, the oath of Henri IV, places sanctity somewhere between feasting and drunkenness, ventre sans cru. I don't belong to the religion of that oath. Woman is forgotten in it. This astonishes me on the part of Henri IV. My friends, long live women. I am old, they say. It's astonishing how much I feel in the mood to be young. I should like to go and listen to the bagpipes in the woods. Children who contrive to be beautiful and contented, that intoxicates me. I would like greatly to get married if anyone would have me. It is impossible to imagine that God could have made us for anything but this. To idolize. To coo. To preen ourselves. To be dove-like. To be dainty. To bill and coo our loves from morning to night. To gaze at one's image in one's little wife. To be proud. To be triumphant. To plume oneself. That is the aim of life. There, let not that displease you, which we used to think in our day when we were young folks. Ah, vertu bambouche. What charming women there were in those days, and what pretty little faces and lovely lasses. I committed my ravages among them. Then love each other. If people did not love each other, I really do not see what use there would be in having any springtime. And for my own part, I should pray the good God to shut up all the beautiful things that he shows us, and to take away from us and put back in his box the flowers, the birds, the pretty maidens. My children receive an old man's blessing. The evening was gay, lively, and agreeable. The grandfather's sovereign good humor gave the keynote to the whole feast, and each person regulated his conduct on that almost centenary and cordiality. They danced a little, they laughed a great deal. It was an amiable wedding. Goodman days of yore might have been invited to it. However, he was present in the person of Father Gélenomon. There was a tumult, then silence. The married pair disappeared. A little after midnight, the Gélenomon house became a temple. Here we pause. On the threshold of wedding nights stands a smiling angel with his finger on his lips. The soul enters into contemplation before that sanctuary where the celebration of love takes place. There should be flashes of light at the wort such houses. The joys which they contain ought to make its escape through the stones of the walls in brilliancy and vaguely illuminate the gloom. It is impossible that this sacred and fatal festival should not give off a celestial radiance to the infinite. Love is the sublime crucible wherein the fusion of the man and the woman takes place. The being one, the being triple, the being final, the human trinity proceeds from it. This birth of two souls into one ought to be an emotion for the gloom. The lover is the priest. The ravaged version is terrified. Something of that joy ascends to God. Where true marriage is, that is to say where there is love, the ideal enters in. A nuptial bed makes a nook of dawn among the shadows. If it were given to the eye of the flesh to scan the formidable and charming visions of the upper life, it is probable that we should behold the forms of night, the winged unknowns, the blue passers of the invisible, bent down, a throng of somber heads around the luminous house, satisfied, showering benedictions, pointing out to each other the virgin wife gently alarmed, sweetly terrified, and bearing the reflection of human bliss upon their divine countenances. If at that supreme hour the wedded pair dazzled with voluptuousness and believing themselves alone were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of wings. Perfect happiness implies a mutual understanding with the angels. That dark little chamber has all heaven for its ceiling. When two mouths, rendered sacred by love, approach to create, it is impossible that there should not be, above that ineffable kiss, aquivering throughout the immense mystery of stars. These felicities are the true ones. There is no joy outside of these joys. Love is the only ecstasy. All the rest weeps. To love or to have loved, this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a fulfillment. End of Book 6, Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of Book 6 of Les Miserables Volume 5 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. Les Miserables Volume 5 by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood. Book 6, The Sleepless Night. Chapter 3, The Inseparable. What had become of Jean Valjean? Immediately after having laughed at Cazette's graceful command when no one was paying any heed to him, Jean Valjean had risen and had gained the anti-chamber unperceived. This was the very room which, eight months before, he had entered black with mud, with blood and powder, bringing back the grandson to the grandfather. The old wainskating was garlanded with foliage and flowers. The musicians were seated on the sofa on which they had laid Mario's town. Basque, in a black coat, knee-bridges, white stockings and white gloves, was arranging roses around all of the dishes that were to be served. Jean Valjean pointed to his arm in its sling, charged Basque to explain his absence and went away. The long windows of the dining room opened on the street. Jean Valjean stood for several minutes, erected motionless in the darkness beneath those radiant windows. He listened. The confused sounds of the banquet reached his ear. He heard the loud, commanding tones of the grandfather, the violins, the clatter of the plates, the bursts of laughter, and through all that merry uproar, he distinguished Cazette's sweet and joyous voice. He quitted the rue de Fille du Cavert and returned to the rue de l'Homarm. In order to return dither, he took the rue Saint-Louise, the rue Couture Saint-Catherine, and the Blanc-Monteau. It was a little longer, but it was the road through which, for the last three months, he had become accustomed to pass every day on his way from the rue de l'Homarm to the rue de Fille du Cavert in order to avoid the obstructions and the mud in the rue Vieille du Tomble. This road, through which Cazette had passed, excluded for him all possibility of any other itinerary. Jean Valjean entered his lodgings. He lighted his candle and mounted the stairs. The apartment was empty, even to Saint was no longer there. Jean Valjean's step made more noise than usual in the chambers, or the cupboards stood open. He penetrated to Cazette's bedroom. There were no sheets on the bed. The pillow, covered with ticking and without a case or lace, was laid on the blankets folded up on the foot of the mattress, whose covering was visible, on which no one was ever to sleep again. All the little feminine objects which Cazette was attached to had been carried away. Nothing remained except the heavy furniture and the four walls. Toussaint's bed was despoiled in a like manner. One bed only was made up and seemed to be waiting someone. And this was Jean Valjean's bed. Jean Valjean looked at the walls, closed some of the cupboard doors, and went and came from one room to another. Then he sought his own chamber once more and set his candle on a table. He had disengaged his arm from the sling, and he used his right hand as though it did not hurt him. He approached his bed, and his eyes rested. Was it by chance? Was it intentionally? On the inseparable, of which Cazette had been jealous, on the little portmanteau which never left him. On his arrival in the Rue de l'Omarme, on the fourth of June, he had deposited it on a round table near the head of his bed. He went to this table with a sort of vavacity, took a key from his pocket, and opened the vallies. From it he slowly drew forth the garments, in which, 10 years before, Cazette had quitted Montfermet. First the little gown, then the black fichoux, then the stout, coarse child's shoes, which Cazette might almost have worn still, so tiny were her feet, and the fustian bodice, which was very thick, then the knitted petticoat, next the apron with the pockets, then the woolen stockings. These stockings, which still preserved the graceful form of a tiny leg, were no longer than Jean Vajon's hand. All this was black of hue. It was he who had brought those garments to Montfermet for her. As he removed them from the vallies, he laid them on the bed. He felt her thinking. He called up memories. It was in winter, in a very cold month of December, she was shivering, half-naked in rags. Her poor little feet were all red in their wooden shoes. He, Jean Vajon, had made her abandon those rags to clothe herself in these mourning her billaments. The mother must have felt pleased in her grave to see her daughter wearing mourning for her, and above all to see that she was properly clothed and that she was warm. He thought of that forest of Montfermet. They had traversed it together, Cazette and he. He thought of what the weather had been, of the leafless trees, of the wood-destitute of birds, of the sunless sky. It mattered not, it was charming. He ranged the tiny garments on the bed, the fissue next to the petticoat, the stockings beside the shoes, and he looked at them, one after the other. She was no taller than that. She had a big doll in her arms. She had put a Louis-Dor in the pocket of that apron. She had laughed. They walked hand in hand. She had no one in the world but him. Then his venerable white head fell forward on the bed. That stoical old heart broke. His face was engulfed, so to speak, in Cazette's garments, and if anyone had passed up the stairs at that moment, he would have heard frightful sobs. End of book 6, chapter 3, read by Anka. Chapter 4 of book 6 of Lemisa Rable, volume 5, 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. Lemisa Rable, volume 5, by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood. Book 6 The Sleepless Night, chapter 4, The Immortal Liver. The old and formidable struggle of which we have already witnessed so many phases, began once more. Jacob struggled with the angel but one night. Alas! How many times have we beheld Jean Valjean seized bodily by his conscience, in the darkness and struggling desperately against it? Unheard of conflict, at certain moments the foot slips, at other moments the ground crumbles away underfoot. How many times had that conscience, mad for the good, clasped and overthrown him? How many times had the truth set her knee inexorably upon his breast? How many times, hurled to earth by the light, had he begged for mercy? How many times had that implacable spark lighted within him, and upon him by the bishop, dazzled him by force when he had wished to be blind? How many times had he risen to his feet in the combat, held fast to the rock, leaning against sophism, dragged in the dust, now getting the upper hand of his conscience, again overthrown by it? How many times, after an equivoc, after the specious and treacherous reasoning of egotism, had he heard his irritated conscience cry in his ear, A trip! You wretch! How many times had his refractory thoughts rattled convulsively in his throat, under the evidence of duty? Resistance to God, funerial sweats! What secret wounds which he alone felt bleed? What excoriations in his lamentable existence? How many times had he risen, bleeding, bruised, broken, enlightened, despair in his heart, serenity in his soul, and, vanquished, he had felt himself the conqueror. And after having dislocated, broken, and rent his conscience with red-hot pincers, he had said to him, as it stood over him, for middable luminous and tranquil, now go in peace. But on emergent from so melancholy a conflict, what a lugubrious peace, alas! Nevertheless that night Jean Valjean felt that he was passing through his final combat. A heart-rending question presented itself. Predestinations are not all direct, they do not open out in a straight avenue before the predestined man. They have blind courts, impassable alleys, obscure turns, disturbing crossroads offering the choice of many ways. Jean Valjean had halted at that moment at the most perilous of these crossroads. He had come to the supreme crossing of good and evil. He had that gloomy intersection beneath his eyes. On this occasion once more, as had happened to him already in other sad vicissitudes, two roads opened out before him, the one tempting, the other alarming. Which was he to take? He was counseled to the one which alarmed him, but that mysterious index finger which we all perceive whenever we fix our eyes on the darkness. Once more, Jean Valjean had the choice between the terrible port and the smiling ambush. Is it then true? The soul may recover, but not fade. Frightful thing, an incurable destiny. This is the problem which presented itself to him. In what manner was Jean Valjean to behave in relation to the happiness of Cousette and Marius? It was he who had willed that happiness. It was he who had brought it about. He had himself buried it in his entrails, and at that moment when he reflected on it he was able to enjoy the sort of satisfaction which an armourer would experience on recognizing his factory mark on a knife, on withdrawing it all smoking from his own breast. Cousette had Marius, Marius possessed Cousette. They had everything, even riches, and this was his doing. But what was he, Jean Valjean, to do with this happiness, now that it existed, now that it was there? Should he force himself on this happiness? Should he treat it as belonging to him? No doubt, Cousette did belong to another. But should he, Jean Valjean, retain of Cousette all that he could retain? Should he remain the sort of father, half-seen but respected, which he had hitherto been? Should he, without saying a word, bring his past to that future? Should he present himself there, as though he had a right? And should he seat himself, veiled, at that luminous fireside? Should he take those innocent hands into his tragic hands with a smile? Should he place upon the peaceful fender of the gilneau-more-drawing-room those feet of his, which dragged behind them the disgraceful shadow of the law? Should he enter into participation in the fair fortunes of Cousette and Marius? Should he render the obscurity on his brow, and the cloud upon their still more dense? Should he place his catastrophe as a third associate in their felicity? Should he continue to hold his peace? In a word, should he be the sinister mute of destiny beside these two happy beings? We must become habituated to fatality, and to encounter us with it, in order to have the daring to raise our eyes when certain questions appear to us in all their horrible nakedness. Good or evil stands behind this severe interrogation point. What are you going to do? Demands the Sphinx. This habit of trial Jean Vajron possessed. He gazed intently at the Sphinx. He examined the pitiless problem under all its aspects. Cousette, that charming existence, was the raft of his shipwreck. What was he to do? To cling fast to it, or to let go his hold? If he clung to it, he should emerge from disaster. He should ascend again into the sunlight. He should let the bitter water drip from his garments and his hair. He was saved. He should live. And if he let go his hold? Then the abyss. Thus he took sad counsel with his thoughts, or to speak more correctly, he fought. He kicked furiously internally, now against his will, now against his conviction. Happily for Jean Vajron that he had been able to weep. That relieved him possibly. But the beginning was savage, a tempest more furious than the one which had formally driven him to Arras broke loose with him. The past surged up before him, facing the present. He compared them, and sobbed. The silence of tears once opened, the despairing man writhed. He felt that he had been stopped short. Alas, in this fight to the death between our egotism and our duty, when we thus retreat step by step before our immutable ideal, bewildered, furious, exasperated at having to yield, disputing the ground, hoping for a possible flight, seeking an escape, what an abrupt and sinister resistance does the foot of the wall offer in our rear. To feel the sacred shadow which forms an obstacle. The invisible and extroble, what an obsession. Then one is never done with conscience. Make your choice, Brutus. Make your choice, Cato. It is fathomless, since it is God. One flings into that well the labour of one's whole life. One flings in one's fortune. One flings in one's riches. One flings in one's success. One flings in one's liberty or fatherland. One flings in one's well-being. One flings in one's repose. One flings in one's joy. More, more, more, empty the vase, tip the urn. One must finish by flinging in one's heart. Somewhere in the fog of the ancient hells there is a ton like that. It is not one pardonable if one at last refuses. Can the inexhaustible have any right? Are not chains which are endless above human strength? Who would blame Sisyphus and Jean Valjean for saying it is enough? The obedience of matter is limited by friction. Is there no limit to the obedience of the soul? If perpetual motion is impossible, can perpetual self-sacrifice be exacted? The first step is nothing. It is the last which is difficult. What was the Jean Mathieu affair in comparison with Cosette's marriage, and of that which it entailed? What is re-entrance into the galleys compared to entrance into the void? O first step that must be descended, how sombre art thou? O second step, how black art thou? How could he refrain from turning aside his head this time? Martyrdom is sublimination, corrosive sublimination. It is a torture which consecrates. One can consent to it for the first hour. One sees oneself on the throne of glowing iron, on places on one's head the crown of hot iron. One accepts the globe of red-hot iron, one takes the scepter of red-hot iron. But the mantle of flame still remains to be donned, and comes there not a moment when the miserable flesh revolves and when one abdicates from suffering. At length Jean Valjean entered into the peace of exhaustion. He weighed, he reflected, he considered the alternatives, the mysterious balance of light and darkness. Should he impose his galleys on those two dazzling children, or should he consummate his irremediable engulfment by himself? On one side lay the sacrifice of Cosette, on the other that of himself. At what solution should he arrive? What decision did he come to? What resolution did he take? What was his own inward definitive response to the unbribable interrogatory of fatality? What door did he decide to open? Which side of his life did he resolve upon closing and condemning? Among all the unfathomable precipices which surrounded him, which was his choice? What extremity did he accept? To which of the gulls did he nod his head? His dizzy reverie lasted all night long. He remained there until daylight, in the same attitude, bent double over that bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, crushed, her chance alas, with clenched fists, with arms outspread at right angles, like a man crucified who has been unnailed and flung face down on the earth. There he remained for twelve hours, the twelve hours of a long winter's night, ice-cold without once raising his head, and without uttering a word. It was as motionless as a corpse, while his thoughts wallowed on the earth and sword, now like the hydra, now like the eagle. Any one to behold him thus motionless would have pronounced him dead. All at once he shuddered convulsively, and his mouth glued to Cosette's garments, kissed them. Then it could be seen that he was alive. Who could see, since Jean Valjean was alone, and there was no one there? The one who is in the shadows. Chapter 1 of Book 7 of Les Miserables, Volume 5, 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 Joyce Martin. Les Miserables, Volume 5, by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood. Book 7. Chapter 1. The Seventh Circle and the Eighth Heaven. The days that follow weddings are solitary. People respect the meditations of the happy pair, and also their tardy slumbers to some degree. The tumult of visits and congratulations only begins later on. On the morning of the seventeenth of February, it was a little past midday, when Basque, with Napkin and Featherduster under his arm, busy in setting his anti-chamber to rights, heard a light tap at the door. There had been no ring which was discreet on such a day. Basque opened the door and beheld Monsieur Paul Chauvant. He introduced him into the drawing-room, still encumbered and topsy-turvy, and which bore the air of a field of battle after the joys of the preceding evening. « Dames, sir, remarked Basque, we all woke up late. Is your master up, asked John Verjean? How is Monsieur's arm, replied Basque, better? Is your master up? Which one, the old one or the new one? Monsieur Pomp-Merci. Monsieur Le Baran, said Basque, drawing himself up. A man is a baron most of all to his servants. He counts for something with them. They are what a philosopher would call bespattered with the title, and that flatters them. Maurice, be it said in passing, a militant republican, as he had proved, was now a baron in spite of himself. A small revolution had taken place in the family in connection with this title. It was now Monsieur Guillaumon who clung to it and Marius who detached himself from it. But Colonel Pomp-Merci had written, my son will bear my title. Marius obeyed, and then Cossette, in whom the woman was beginning to dawn, was delighted to be a baroness. Monsieur Le Baran, repeated Basque, I will go and see. I will tell him that Monsieur François Chauvin is here. No, do not tell him that it is I. Tell him that someone wishes to speak to him in private and mention no name. Ah, ejaculated Basque. I wish to surprise him. Ah, ejaculated Basque once more, emitting his second ah as an explanation of the first. Then he left the room. Jean Valjean remained alone. The drawing-room, as we have said, was in great disorder. It seemed as though, by lending an air, one might still hear the vague noise of the wedding. On the polished floor lay all sorts of flowers which had fallen from garlands and headdresses. The wax-handles burned to stumps, added stalactites of wax to the crystal drops of the chandeliers. But a single piece of furniture was in its place. In the corners, three or four arm-chairs drawn close together in a circle, had the appearance of continuing a conversation. The whole effect was cheerful. A certain gray still lingers round a dead feast. It has been a happy thing. On the chairs in disarray, among those fading flowers, beneath those extinct lights, people have thought of joy. The sun had receded to the chandelier and made its way gaily into the drawing-room. Several minutes elapsed. Jean Valjean stood motionless on the spot where Basque had left him. He was very pale. His eyes were hollow and so sunken in his head by sleeplessness that they nearly disappeared in their orbits. His black coat bore the weary folds of a garment that has been up all night. The elbows were whitened with the down which the friction of cloth against linen leaves behind it. Jean Valjean stared at the window outlined on the polished floor at his feet by the sun. There came a sound at the door and he raised his eyes. Marius entered. His head well up, his mouth smiling. An indescribable light on his continents, his brow expanded, his eyes triumphant. He had not slept, either. "'It is you, Father,' he exclaimed, in catching sight of Jean Valjean, that idiot of a Basque had such a mysterious air, but you have come too early. It is only half past twelve, cosette is asleep.' That word, Father, said to M. F. Marius, signified supreme felicity. There had always existed, as the reader knows, a lofty wall, a coldness, and a constraint between them, ice which must be broken or melted. Marius had reached that point of intoxication when the wall was lowered, when the ice dissolved, and when M. F. Chauvin was to him as to cosette, a Father. He continued his words poured forth as in the peculiarity of divine paroxysms of joy. "'How glad I am to see you! If you only knew how we missed you yesterday. Good morning, Father, how is your hand? Better is it not?' And satisfied with the favourable reply which he had made to himself, he pursued. "'We have both been talking about you, cosette loves you so dearly. You must not forget that you have a chamber here. We want nothing more to do with the rude de l'homme. We will have no more of it at all. How could you go to live in a street like that, which is sickly, which is disagreeable, which is ugly, which has a barrier at one end where one is cold and into which one cannot enter? You are to come and install yourself here, and this very day, or you will have to deal with cosette. She means to lead us all by the nose, I warn you. You have your own chamber here. It is close to ours. It opens in the garden. The trouble with the clock has been attended to. The bed is made. It is all ready. You have only to take possession of it. Near your bed cosette has placed a huge old easy chair covered with ultroth velvet, and she has said to it, Stretch out your arms to him. A nightingale comes to the clump of acacia opposite your windows every spring. In two months more you will have it. You will have it's nest on your left and ours on your right. By night it will sing, and by day cosette will prattle. Your chamber faces do south. Cosette will arrange your books for you, your voyages of Captain Cook and the other Vancouver's and all your affairs. I believe that there is a little valise to which you are attached. I have fixed upon a corner of honour for that. You have conquered my grandfather. You suit him. We will live together. Do you play wist? You will overwhelm my grandfather with delight if you play wist. It is you who shall take cosette to walk on the days when I am at the courts, and you shall give her your arm, you know, as you used to, in the Luxembourg. We are absolutely resolved to be happy, and you shall be included in it in our happiness. Do you hear, Father? Come. Give us with us today. Sir, C'est Jean Vajon, I have something to say to you. I am an ex-convict. The limit of shrill sounds perceptible can be overleaped, as well in the case of the mind as in that of the ear. These words, I am an ex-convict, proceeding from the mouth of M. F. Chauvin and entering the ear of Marius, overshot the possible. It seemed to him that something had just been said to him, but he did not know what. He stood with his mouth wide open. Then he perceived that the man who was addressing him was frightful. Holy-absorbed in his own dazzled state he had not, up to that moment, observed the other man's terrible pallor. Jean Vajon untied the black cravat which supported his right arm, curled the linen from around his hand, bared his thumb, and showed it to Marius. There is nothing the matter with my hand, said he. Marius looked at the thumb. There has not been anything the matter with it, went on Jean Vajon. There was, in fact, no trace of an injury. Jean Vajon continued. It was fitting that I should be absent from your marriage. I absented myself as much as was in my power. So I invented this injury in order that I might not commit a forgery, that I might not introduce a flaw into the marriage documents in order that I might escape from signing. Marius stammered. What is the meaning of this? The meaning of it is, replied Jean Vajon, that I have been in the galleys. You are driving me mad, exclaimed Marius in terror. M. Pomp-Mercy, Saint-Jean Vajon, I was nineteen years in the galleys for theft. Then I was condemned to life for theft, for a second offense. At the present moment I have broken my ban. In vain did Marius recoil before the reality refuse the fact, resist the evidence. He was forced to give way. He began to understand, and, as always happens in such cases, he understood too much. An inward shudder of hideous enlightenment flashed through him, an idea which made him quiver transversed his mind. He caught a glimpse of a wretched destiny for himself in the future. Say ah, say ah, he cried. You are Cossette's father! And he retreated a couple of paces with a movement of indescribable horror. Jean Vajon elevated his head with so much majesty of attitude that he seemed to grow even to the ceiling. It is necessary that you should believe me here, sir, although our oath to others may not be received in law. After he paused, then, with a sort of sovereign and spectral authority, he added, articulating slowly and emphasizing the syllables. You will believe me. I, the father of Cossette, before God, know. Monsieur le Baron Pomp-Merci, I am a peasant of faveuraux. I earned my living by pruning trees. My name is not Fort Levant, but Jean Vajon. I am not related to Cossette, reassure yourself. Marius stammered. Who will prove that to me? I, since I tell you so. Marius looked at the man. He was melancholy, yet tranquil. No lie could proceed from such a calm. That which is icy is sincere. The truth could be felt in that chill of the tomb. I believe you, Marius said. Jean Vajon bent his head as though taking note of this and continued. What am I to Cossette, a passer-by? Ten years ago I did not know that she was in existence. I love her it is true. One loves a child whom one has seen when very young, being old oneself. When one is old one feels oneself a grandfather toward all little children. You may, it seems to me, suppose that I have something which resembles a heart. She was an orphan, without either father or mother. She needed me. That is why I began to love her. Children are so weak that the first comer, even a man like me, can become their protector. I have fulfilled this duty toward Cossette. I do not think that so slight a thing can be called a good action. But if it be a good action, well, say that I have done it. Register this attenuating circumstance. Today Cossette passes out of my life our two roads part. Henceforth I can do nothing for her. She is Madame Pomp-Mercy. Her providence has changed, and Cossette gains by the change. All is well. As for the six hundred thousand francs, you do not mention them to me, but I forstall your thought. They are in deposit. How did that deposit come into my hands? What does that matter? I restore the deposit. Nothing more can be demanded of me. I complete the restitution by announcing my true name. That concerns me. I have a reason for desiring that you should know who I am. And Jean Valjean looked Marius full in the face. All that Marius experienced was tumultuous and incoherent. Certain gusts of destiny produced these billows in our souls. We have all undergone moments of trouble in which everything within us is dispersed. We say the first things that occur to us, which are not always precisely those which should be said. There are sudden revelations which one cannot bear and which intoxicate like a baleful wine. Marius was stupefied by the novel situation which presented itself to him, to the point of addressing that man almost like a person who was angry with him for this avowal. But why, exclaimed, do you tell me all this? Who forces you to do so? You could have kept your secret to yourself. You are neither denounced nor tracked nor pursued. You have a reason for wantingly making such a revelation? Conclude, there is something more. In what connection do you make this confession? What is your motive? My motive, reply Jean Valjean, in a voice so low and dull, that one would have said that he was talking to himself rather than Marius. From what motive, in fact, has this convict just said, I am a convict? Well yes, the motive is strange, it is out of honesty. Stay the unfortunate point is that I have a thread in my heart which keeps me fast. It is when one is old that that sort of thread is particularly solid. All life falls in ruin around one, one resists. Had I been able to tear out that thread, to break it, to undo the knot or to cut it, to go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away. There are diligence in the roux-bouloi. You are happy. I am going. I have tried to break that thread. I have jerked at it. It would not break. I tore my heart with it. Then I said, I cannot live anywhere else than here. I must stay. Well, yes, you are right. I am a fool. Why not simply remain here? You offer me a chamber in this house. Madame Pomp Merci is sincerely attached to me. She said to the arm-chair, Stretch out your arms to him. Your grandfather demands nothing better than to have me. I suit him. We shall live together and take our meals in common. I shall give Cosette my arm. Madame Pomp Merci, excuse me, it is a habit. We shall have but one roof, one table, one fire, the same chimney corner in winter, the same promenade in summer. That is joy. That is happiness. That is everything. We shall live as one family, one family. At the word Jean Valjean became wild. He folded his arms, glared at the floor beneath his feet, as though he would have evacuated an abyss therein, and his voice suddenly rose in thundering tones. As one family, no, I belong to no family. I do not belong to yours. I do not belong to any family of men. In houses where people are among themselves I am superfluous. There are families, but there is nothing of the sort for me. I am an unlucky wretch. I am left outside. Did I have a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave that child in marriage all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and that she is with a man whom she loves, and that there exists here a kind old man, a household of two angels, and all joys in that house, and that as well. I said to myself, Enter thou not. I could have lied. It is true. I deceived you all, and remained, most sure, forche le vent, so long as it was for her. I could lie. But now it would be for myself, and I must not. It was sufficient for me to hold my peace. It is true, and all would go on. You ask me what has forced me to speak? A very odd thing. My conscience. To hold my peace was very easy, however. I passed the night in trying to persuade myself to do it. You questioned me, and what I have just said to you is so extraordinary that you have the right to do it. Well, yes. I have passed the night in alleging reasons to myself, and I gave myself very good reasons. I have done what I could. But there are two things in which I have not succeeded. In breaking the thread that holds me fixed, riveted, and sealed here by the heart. Or in silencing someone who speaks softly to me when I am alone. That is why I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. Everything or nearly everything. It is useless to tell you that which concerns only myself. I keep that to myself. You know the essential points. So I have taken my mystery and have brought it to you, and I have disemboweled my secret before your eyes. It was not a resolution that was easy to make. I struggled all night long. You think that I did not tell myself that this was no Chant-Mathieu affair, that by concealing my name I was doing no one any injury, that the name of Fauch Levant had been given to me by Fauch Levant himself out of gratitude for a service rendered to him, and that I might assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in that chamber which you offer me, that I should not be in anyone's way, that I should be in my own little corner and that while you would have cosette, I should have the idea that I was in the same house with her. Each one of us would have had this share of happiness. If I continued to be, Monsieur Fauch Levant, that would arrange everything, yes, with the exception of my soul. There was joy everywhere upon my surface, but the bottom of my soul remained black. It is not enough to be happy. One must be content. Thus I should have remained, Monsieur Fauch Levant. Thus I should have concealed my true visage. Thus in the presence of your expansion I should have had an enigma. Thus in the midst of your full noonday I should have had shadows, thus without crying where. I should have simply introduced the galleys to your fireside. I should have taken my seat at your table with the thought that if you knew who I was you would drive me from it. I should have allowed myself to be served by domestics who, had they known, would have said, How horrible! I should have touched you with my elbow which you have a right to dislike. I should have filched your clasps of the hand. There would have existed in your house a division of respect between venerable white locks and tainted white locks at your most intimate hours when all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest. When we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a stranger would have been present. I should have been side by side with you in your existence, having for my only care not to disarrange the cover of my dreadful pit. Thus I, a dead man, should have thrust myself upon you who are living beings. I should have condemned her to myself for ever. You and Cosette I would have had all three of our heads in the green cap. Does it not make you shudder? I am only the most crushed of men. I should have been the most monstrous of men. And I should have committed that crime every day. And I should have had that face of night upon my visage every day, every day. And I should have communicated to you in my taint every day, every day, to you, my dearly beloved, my children, to you, my innocent creatures. Is it nothing to hold one's peace? Is it a simple matter to keep silence? No, it is not simple. There is a silence which lies, and my lie, and my fraud, and my indignity, and my cowardice, and my treason, and my crime, I should have drained drop by drop. I should have spit it out, then swallowed it again. I should have finished it at midnight, and have begun again at midday, and my good morning would have lied, and my good night would have lied, and I should have slept on it. I should have eaten it with my bread. And I should have looked at Cosette in the face, and I should have responded to the smile of an angel by the smile of the damned soul. And I should have been an abominable villain. Why should I do it, in order to be happy? In order to be happy? Have I the right to be happy? I stand outside of life, sir. Jean Valjean paused. Marius listened. Such chains of ideas and of anguishes cannot be interrupted. Jean Valjean lowered his voice once more, but it was no longer a dull voice. It was a sinister voice. You ask why I speak. I am neither denounced nor pursued nor tracked, you say. Yes I am denounced. Yes, I am tracked. By whom? By myself. It is I who bar the passage to myself, and I drag myself, and I push myself, and I arrest myself, and I execute myself, and when one holds oneself, one is firmly held. And seizing a handful of his own coat by the nape of the neck and extending toward Marius. Do you see that fist, he continued? Do you think that it holds that collar in such a wise as not to release it? Well, conscience is another grasp. If one desires to be happy, sir, one must never understand duty. For as soon as one has comprehended it, it is implacable. One would say that it punished you for comprehending it, but know it rewards you for it places you in a hell where you feel God beside you. One has no sooner lacerated his own entrails than he is at peace with himself. And with a poignant accent, he added, Monsieur Paul Merci, this is not common sense. I am an honest man. It is by degrading myself in your eyes that I elevate myself in my own. This has happened to me once before. But it was less painful than it was a mere nothing. Yes, an honest man, I should not be so if I, through my fault, you had continued to esteem me now that you despise me. I am so. I have that fatality hanging over me that not being able to ever have anything but stolen consideration, that consideration humiliates me and crushes me inwardly. And in order that I may respect myself, it is necessary that I should be despised. Then I straighten up again. I am a galley slave who obeys his conscience. I know well that that is most improbable. But what would you have me to do about it? It is a fact. I have entered into engagements with myself. I keep them. There are encounters which bind us. There are chances which involve us in duties. You see, Monsieur Paul Merci, various things have happened to me in the course of my life. Again Jean Valjean paused, swallowing his saliva with an effort, as though his words had a bitter aftertaste. And then he went on. When one has such a horror hanging over one, one has not the right to make others share it without their knowledge. One has not the right to make them slip over one's own precipice without their perceiving it. One has not the right to let one's red blouse drag upon them. One has no right to slyly encumber with one's misery the happiness of others. It is hideous to approach those who are healthy and to touch them in the dark with one's ulcer. In spite of the fact that Falsch Levant lent me his name, I have no right to use it. He could give it to me, but I could not take it. A name is an eye. You see, sir, that I have thought somewhat. I have read a little, although I am a peasant, and you see that I express myself properly. I understand things. I have procured myself an education. Well, yes, to abstract a name and to place oneself under it is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched like a purse or a watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood. To be a living false key. To enter the house of honest people by picking their lock. Nevermore to look straight forward or forever, I askance. To be infamous with the eye. No, no, no, no, no. It is better to suffer, to bleed, to weep. To tear one's skin from the flesh with one's nails. To pass nights writhing in anguish. To devour one's self-body and soul. That is why I have just told you all this, wantonly, as you say. He drew a painful breath and hurled his final word. In days gone by I stole a loaf of bread in order to live. Today in order to live I will not steal a name. To live, interrupted Marius, you do not need that name in order to live? Ah, I understand the matter, said Jean Valjean, raising and lowering his head several times in succession. A silence ensued. Both held their peace, each plunged in a gulf of thoughts. Marius was sitting near a table and resting the corner of his mouth on one of his fingers, which was folded back. Jean Valjean was pacing to and fro. He paused before a mirror and remained motionless, then, as though replying to some inward course of reasoning, he said, as he gazed at the mirror which he did not see. While at present I am relieved. He took up his march again and walked to the other end of the drawing-room. At the moment when he turned round he perceived that Marius was watching his walk. Then he sat with an inexpressible intonation. I dragged my leg a little, now you understand why. Then he turned fully round toward Marius. And now, sir, imagine this. I have said nothing. I have remained motion-faut-chavant. I have taken my place in your house. I am one of you. I am in my chamber. I come to breakfast in the morning in slippers. In the evening all three of us go to the play. I accompany Madame Pomp-Merci to the Tuileries and to the Place Royale. We are together. You think me, you're equal. One fine day you are there and I am there. We are conversing. We are laughing. All at once you hear a voice shouting this name, Jean Valjean. And behold, that terrible hand, the police darts from the darkness and abruptly tears off my mask. Again he paused. Marius had sprung to his feet with a shudder. Jean Valjean resumed, What do you say to that? Marius' silence answered for him. Jean Valjean continued, You see that I am right in not holding my peace. Be happy. Be in heaven. The angel of an angel, exist in the sun, be content therewith, and do not trouble yourself about the means which a poor damned wretch takes to open his breasts and force his duty to come forth. You have before you, sir, a wretched man. Marius slowly crossed the room, and when he was quite close to Jean Valjean he offered the latter his hand. But Marius was obliged to step up and take that hand which was not offered. Jean Valjean let him have his own way, and it seemed to Marius that he pressed a hand of marble. My grandfather has friends, said Marius, I will procure your pardon. It is useless, replied Jean Valjean. I am believed to be dead, and that suffices. The dead are not subjected to surveillance. They are supposed to rot in peace. Death is the same thing as pardon. And disengaging the hand which Marius held, he added with a sort of inexorable dignity. Moreover, the friend to whom I have recourse is the doing of my duty, and I need but one pardon, that of my conscience. At that moment a door at the other end of the drawing-room opened gently, halfway, and in the opening cosettes had appeared. They saw only her sweet face, her hair, was in charming disorder. Her eyelids were still swollen with sleep. She made the movement of a bird, which thrusts its head out of its nest, glanced first at her husband, then at Jean Valjean, and cried to them with a smile so that they seemed to behold a smile at the heart of a rose. I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead of being with me! Jean Valjean shuddered. Cosette! stammered Marius, and he paused. One would have said that they were two criminals. Cosette, who was radiant, continued to gaze at both of them. There was something in her eyes like gleams of paradise. I have caught you in the very act, said Cosette. Just now I heard my father fall chaleurant through the door of saying, Conscience, doing my duty. That is politics, indeed it is. I will not have it. People should not talk politics the very next day. It is not right. You are mistaken, Cosette, said Marius. We are talking business. We are discussing the best investment of your six hundred thousand francs. That is not it at all, interrupted Cosette. I am coming. Does anybody want me here? And passing resolutely through the door, she entered the drawing room. She was dressed in a voluminous white dressing gown with a thousand folds and large sleeves which, starting from the neck, fell to her feet in the golden heavens of some ancient Gothic pictures. There are these charming sacks fit to clothe the angels. She contemplated herself from head to foot in a long mirror and then exclaimed in an outburst of ineffable ecstasy. There was once a king and a queen, oh, how happy I am! That said she made a curtsy to Marius and to Jean Valjean. There, said she, I am going to install myself near you in an easy chair. We breakfast in half an hour and you shall say anything you like. I know well that men must talk it. I will be very good. Marius took her by the arm and said lovingly to her, We are talking business. By the way, said Cosette, I have opened my window. A flock of periots have arrived in the garden. Birds not maskers. Today is Ash Wednesday, but not for the birds. I tell you that we are talking business. No, my little Cosette, leave us alone for a moment. We are talking figures that will bore you. You have a charming cravat on this morning, Marius. You are very dandified, Monsignor. No, it will not bore me. I assure you that it will bore you. No, since it is you, I shall not understand you, but I shall listen to you. When one hears the voices of those whom one loves, one does not need to understand the words that they utter, that we should be here together. That is all that I desire. I shall remain with you, but you are my beloved Cosette, impossible, impossible, yes. Very good, said Cosette. I was going to tell you some news. I could have told you that your grandfather is still asleep, that your aunt is at mass, that the chimney in my father's false chauvin's room smokes, that Nicolette has sent for the chimney sweep, that Toussaint and Nicolette have already quarrelled, that Nicolette makes sport of Toussaint's stammer, well, you shall know nothing. Ah, it is impossible, you shall see, gentlemen, that I, in my turn, can say, it is impossible. Then who will be caught? I beseech you, my little Marius. Let me stay here with you, too. I swear to you that it is indispensable that we should be alone. Well, am I anybody? Jean Vajon had not uttered a single word. Cosette turned to him. In the first place, Father, I want you to come and embrace me. What do you mean by not saying anything instead of taking my part? Who gave me such a father as that? You must perceive that my family life is very unhappy. My husband beats me. Come embrace me instantly. Jean Vajon approached. Cosette turned toward Marius. As for you, I shall make a face of you. Then she presented her brow to Jean Vajon. Jean Vajon advanced a step toward her. Cosette recoiled. Father, you are pale. Does your arm hurt you? Did you sleep badly? No. Are you sad? No. Embrace me if you are well, if you sleep well, if you are content. I will not scold you. And again she offered him her brow. Jean Vajon dropped a kiss upon that brow. Whereon rested a celestial gleam? Smile! Jean Vajon obeyed. It was the smile of a specter. Now defend me against my husband. Cosette, ejaculated Marius. Get angry, Father. Say that I must stay. You can certainly talk before me. So you think me very silly? What you say is astonishing business, placing money in a bank a great matter truly. Men make mysteries out of nothing. I am very pretty this morning. Look at me, Marius. And with an adorable shrug of the shoulders and an indescribably exquisite pout, she glanced at Marius. I love you, said Marius. I adore you, said Cosette. And they fell irresistibly into each other's arms. Now, said Cosette, adjusting a fold of her dressing gown with a triumphant little grimace, I shall stay. No, not that, said Marius, in a supplicating tone. We have to finish something. Still no? Marius assumed a grave tone. I assure you, Cosette, that is impossible. Ah, you put on your man's voice, sir. That is well I go. You, Father, have not upheld me. Miss you and my father, Miss you and my husband, you are tyrants. I shall go and tell Grandpa. If you think that I am going to return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud. I shall wait for you now. You shall see that it is you who are going to be bored without me. I am going. It is well. And she left the room. Two seconds later the door opened once more. Her fresh and rosy head was again thrust between the two leaves, and she cried to them. I am very angry indeed. The door closed again, and the shadows descended once more. It was as though a ray of sunlight should have suddenly traversed the night without itself being conscious of it. Marius made sure that the door was securely closed. Poor Cosette, he murmured, when she finds out. At that word Jean Vajon trembled in every limb. He fixed on Marius a bewildered eye. Cosette! Oh, yes, it is true you are going to tell Cosette about this. That is right. Stay, I had not thought of that. One has the strength for one thing, but not the other, sir. I conjure you. I can treat you now, sir. Give me your most sacred word of honor that you will not tell her. Is it not enough that you should know it? I have been able to say it myself without being forced to it. I could have told it to the universe, to the whole world. It was all one to me, but she does not know what it is. It would terrify her. But a convict we should be obliged to explain matters to her, to say to her, he is a man who has been in the galleys. She saw the chain-gang pass by me one day. Oh, my God! He dropped into an armchair and hid his face in his hands. His grief was not audible, but from the quivering of his shoulders, it was evident that he was weeping. Silent tears. Terrible tears. There is something of suffocation in the sob. He was seized with a sort of convulsion. He threw himself against the back of the chair as though to gain breath, letting his arms fall and allowing Marius to see his face inundated with tears. And Marius heard him murmur so low that his voice seemed to issue from fathomless depths. Oh, would that I could die! He at your ease, said Marius, I will keep your secret for myself alone. And less touched perhaps than he ought to have been but forced, for the last hour, to familiarize himself with something as unexpected as it was dreadful, gradually beholding the convict superimposed before his very eyes, upon Mr. Falsch-Levant, overcome, little by little, by that ledrugrious reality and led by the natural inclination of the situation to recognize the space which had just been placed between that man and himself. Marius added, It is impossible that I should not speak a word to you with regard to the deposit which you have so faithfully and honestly remitted. That is an act of property. It is just that some recompense should be bestowed on you. Fix the sum yourself. It shall be counted out to you. Do not fear to set it very high. Thank you, sir," replied Jean Valjean gently. He remained in thought for a moment, mechanically passing the tip of his forefinger across his thumbnail. Then he lifted up his voice. All is nearly over, but one last thing remains for me. What is it? Jean Valjean struggled with what seemed a last hesitation and without a voice, without breath. He stammered rather than said, Now that you know, do you think, sir, you who are the master that I ought not to seco-set anymore, I think that would be better," replied Marius coldly. I shall never see her more, murmured Jean Valjean, and he directed his steps toward the door. He laid his hand on the knob, the latch yielded, the door opened. Jean Valjean pushed it open far enough to pass through, stood motionless for a second, then closed up the door again and turned to Marius. He was no longer pale, he was livid. There were no longer any tears in his eyes, but only a sort of tragic flame. His voice had regained a strange composure. Stay, sir, he said. If you will allow it, I will come to see her. I assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not cared to seco-set, I should not have made to you the confession that I have made. I should have gone away. But as I desired to remain in the place where cosette is and to continue to see her, I had to tell you about it honestly. You follow my reasoning, do you not? It is a matter easily understood. You see, I have had her with me for more than nine years. We lived first in that hut on the boulevard, then in the convent, then near the Luxembourg. That was where you saw her for the first time. You remember her blue plush hat? Then we went to the Quartier des Invalides, where there was a railing on the garden, the Rue Plumet. I lived in a little back courtyard, once I could hear her piano. That was my life. We never left each other. That lasted for nine years and some months. I was like her own father, and she was my child. I do not know whether you understand, while she was of point merci, but to go away now, never to see her again, never to speak to her again, to no longer have anything would be hard. If you do not disapprove of it, I will come to see cosette from time to time. I will not come often. I will not remain long. You shall give orders that I am to be received in the little waiting room on the ground floor. I could enter perfectly well by the back door, but that might create surprise, perhaps. And it would be better, I think, for me to enter by the usual door. Truly, sir, I should like to see a little more of cosette. As rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place. I have nothing left but that. And then we must be cautious. If I no longer come at all, it would produce a bad effect. It would be considered singular. What I can do, by the way, is to come in the afternoon when night is beginning to fall. You shall come every evening, said Marius, and cosette will be waiting for you. You are kind, sir, said Jean Valjean. Marius saluted Jean Valjean. Happiness escorted despair to the door, and these two men parted. End of book 7, chapter 1, recording by Joyce Martin. Chapter 2 of book 7 of Les Miserables, volume 5 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 Karen. Les Miserables, volume 5 by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood. Book 7, chapter 2, The Obscurities Which a Revelation Can Contain. Marius was quite upset. The sort of estrangement which he had always felt toward the man beside whom he had seen cosette, was now explained to him. There was something enigmatic about that person, of which his instinct had warned him. This enigma was the most hideous of disgraces, the galleys. This Monsieur Fauche Levant was the convict Jean Valjean. To abruptly find such a secret in the midst of one's happiness resembles the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtledoves. Was the happiness of Marius and cosette therefore condemned to such a neighborhood? Was this an accomplished fact? Did the acceptance of that man form a part of the marriage now consummated? Was there nothing to be done? Had Marius wedded the convict as well? In vain may one be crowned with light and joy. In vain they one taste the grand purple hour of life. Happy love! Such shocks would force even the archangel in his ecstasy, even the demigod in his glory, to shudder. As is always the case in change of view of this nature, Marius asked himself whether he had nothing with which to reproach himself. Had he been watching in divination? Had he been wanting in prudence? Had he involuntarily dulled his wits? A little, perhaps. Had he entered upon this love affair which had ended in his marriage to cosette without taking sufficient precautions to throw light upon the surroundings? He admitted, it is thus, by a series of successive admissions of ourselves in regard to ourselves that life amends us, little by little. He admitted the shumerical and visionary side of his nature, a sort of internal cloud peculiar to many organizations, and which in paroxysms of passion and sorrow dilates as the temperature of the soul changes, and invades the entire man, to such degree as to render him nothing more than a conscience bathed in a mist. We have more than once indicated this characteristic element of Marius's individuality. He recalled that in intoxication of his love in the ruple humée during those six or seven ecstatic weeks he had not even spoken to cosette of that drama in the Gourbaughaville, where the victim had taken up such a singular line of silence during the struggle and the ensuing flight. How would it happen that he had not mentioned this to cosette? Yet it was so near and so terrible. How had it come to pass that he had not even named the Thernardier, and particularly on the day when he encountered Ebonyne? He now found it almost difficult to explain his silence of that time. Nevertheless he could account for it. He recalled his benum state, his intoxication with cosette, love absorbing everything, that catching away of each other into the ideal, and perhaps also like the imperceptible quantity of reason mingled with his violent and charming state of the soul, a vague dull instinct impelling him to conceal and abolish in his memory that redoubtable adventure, contact with which he dreaded, in which he did not wish to play any part, his agency in which he had kept secret, and in which he could be neither narrator nor witness without being an accuser. Moreover, these few weeks had been a flash of lightning. There had been no time for anything except love. In short, having weighed everything, turned everything over in his mind, examined everything, whatever might have been the consequences if he had told cosette about the Gourbault ambush. Even if he had discovered that Jean Verjean was a convict, would that have changed him, Marius? Would that have changed her, cosette? Would he have drawn back? Would he have adored her any the less? Would he have refrained from marrying her? No. Then there was nothing to regret, nothing with which he need reproach himself. All was well. There was a deity for those drunken men who were called lovers. Marius blind had followed the path in which he would have chosen had he been in full possession of his sight. Love had bandaged his eyes in order to lead him with her to paradise. But this paradise was henceforth complicated with an infernal accompaniment. Marius' ancient estrangement towards this man, towards this fauche levant who had turned into Jean Verjean, was at present mingled with horror. In this horror that estate there was some pity, and even a certain surprise. This thief, this thief guilty of a second offence, had restored that deposit. And what a deposit, six hundred thousand francs! He alone was in the secret of that deposit. He might have kept it all. He had restored it all. Moreover he had himself redealed his situation. Nothing forced him to this. If anyone learned who he was it was through himself. In this avow there was something more than acceptance of humiliation. There was acceptance of peril. For a condemned man, a mask, is not a mask, it is a shelter. A false name is security, and he had rejected that false name. He, the galley slave, might have hidden himself forever in an honest family. He had withstood this temptation. And with what motive? For conscientious scruple. He himself explained this with the irresistible accents of truth. In short, whatever this Jean Valjean might be, he was undoubtedly a conscience which was awakening. There existed some mysterious rehabilitation which had begun, and to all appearances scruples had for a long time already controlled this man. Such fits of justice and goodness are not characteristic of vulgar natures. An awakening of conscience is grandeur of soul. Jean Valjean was sincere. This sincerity, visible, palpable, irrefragable, evident from the very grief that it had caused him, rendered inquiries useless, and conferred authority on all that the man had said. Here from Marius there was a strange reversal of situations. What breathe from Monsieur Fauchelvent distrust? What did Jean Valjean inspire? Confidence. In the mysterious balance of this Jean Valjean, which the pence of Marius struck, he admitted the active principle, he admitted the passive principle, and he tried to reach a balance. But all this went on as in a storm. Marius, while endeavoring to form a clear idea of this man, and while pursuing Jean Valjean, so to speak, in the depths of his thought, lost him and found him again in a fatal mist. This deposit honestly restored the probity of the confession. These were good. This produced a lightning in the cloud. Then the cloud became black once more. Troubled as were Marius's memories, a shadow of them returned to him. After all, what was that adventure in the genre attic? Why had that man taken to flight on the arrival of police, instead of entering a complaint? After Marius found the answer. Because that man was a fugitive from justice who had broken his ban. Another question. Why had that man come to the barricade? For Marius now once more distinctly beheld that recollection which had reappeared in his emotions, like sympathetic ink at the application of heat. This man had been in the barricade. He had not thought there. What had he come there for? In the presence of this question a specter sprang up and replied, Javert. Marius recalled perfectly now that funerial sight of Jean Valjean dragging the pinion Javert out of the barricade, and he still heard behind the corner of the little roue mont de tour that frightful pistol shot. Obviously there was hatred between that police spy and the galley slave. The one was in the other's way. Jean Valjean had gone to the barricade for the purpose of revenging himself. He had arrived late. He probably knew that Javert was a prisoner there. The corset conventeta had penetrated a certain lower strata and had become the law there. It is so simple that it does not astonish souls which are about half turned towards good, and those hearts are so constituted that a criminal who is in the path of repentance may be scrupulous in the matter of theft and unscrupulous in the matter of vengeance. Jean Valjean had killed Javert. At least that seemed to be evident. This was the final question to be sure, but to this there was no reply. This question, Marius, felt like pincers. How had it come to pass that Jean Valjean's existence had elbowed that of Cosset for so long a period? What melancholy sport of providence was that which had placed that child in contact with that man? Are they then chains for two which are forged on high? And does God take pleasure in coupling the angel with a demon? So a crime and an innocence can be roommates in the mysterious galleys of wretchedness, in that defiling of condemned persons which is called human destiny, can two brows pass side by side, the one ingenuous, the other formidable, the one all bathed in the divine whiteness of dawn, the other forever blemish by the flash of eternal lightning? Who could have arranged that inexplicable pairing off? In what manner, in consequence of what prodigy had any community of life been established between the celestial little creature and that old criminal? Who could have bound the lamb to the wolf, and what was still more incomprehensible have attached the wolf to the lamb? For the wolf loved the lamb. For the fierce creature adored the feeble one. For during the space of nine years the angel had had the monster as her point of support. Cosette's childhood and girlhood, her advent in the daylight, her virginal growth towards life and light, had been sheltered by that hideous devotion. Here questions exfoliated, so to speak, into innumerable enigmas, abysses yawned at the bottom of abysses. And Marys could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without becoming dizzy. What was this man precipice? The old symbols of Genesis are eternal. In human society, such it now exists, and until a broader day she'll effect a change in it, there will always be two men, the one superior, the other subterranean. The one, which is according to good, is able. The other, which is according to evil, is cain. What was this tender cain? What was this ruffian religiously absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her, rearing her, guarding her, signifying her and enveloping her, impure as he was himself, with purity? What was that cesspool which had venerated that innocence, to such a point as not to leave upon it a single spot? What was this Jean Valjean educating Cozette? What was this figure of the shadows, which had for its only object the preservation of the rising of a star from every shadow and from every cloud? What was Jean Valjean's secret? That was also God's secret. In the presence of this double secret, Marius recoiled. The one in some sort reassured him as to the other. God was as visible in this affair as was Jean Valjean. God has his insurance. He makes use of the tools which he wills. He is not responsible to men. Do we know how God sets about the work? Jean Valjean had labored over Cozette. He had, to some extent, made that soul. That was incontestable. Well, what then? The workman was horrible, but the work was admirable. God produces his miracles as seems good to him. He had constructed that charming Cozette, and he had employ Jean Valjean. It had pleased him to choose this strange collaborator for himself. What account have we to demand of him? Was this the first time that the dungheap has aided the spring to create the rose? Marius made himself these replies, and declared to himself that they were good. He had not dared to press Jean Valjean on all the points which we have just indicated, but he did not confess to himself that he did not dare to do it. He adored Cozette. He possessed Cozette. Cozette was splendidly pure. That was sufficient for him. What enlightenment did he need? That was a light. Does light require enlightenment? He had everything. What more could he desire? All. It's not that enough. Jean Valjean's personal affairs did not concern him. And bending over the fatal shadow of that man, he clung fast, convulsively to the solemn declaration of that unhappy wretch. I am nothing to Cozette. Ten years ago I did not know that she was in existence. Jean Valjean was a passer-by. He had said so himself. Well, he had passed. Whatever he was, his part was finished. Henceforth they remained Marius to fulfill the part of Providence to Cozette. Cozette had sought this azure in a person like herself, in her lover, her husband, her celestial mate. Cozette, as she took her flight, winged and transfigured, left behind her on the earth her hideous and empty chrysalis, Jean Valjean. In whatever circle of ideas Marius revolved, he always returned to a certain horror for Jean Valjean. A sacred horror, perhaps. For as we have just pointed out, he felt a quid divinum in that man. But do what he could, and seek what extenuation he would, he was certainly forced to fall back on this. The man was a convict. That is to say a being who was not even a place in the social ladder, since he is lower than the very lowest rung. To the very last of men comes a convict. The convict is no longer, so to speak, in the semblance of the living. The law has deprived him of the entire quantity of humanity of which it can deprive a man. Marius on penal questions still held to the inexorable system, though he was a Democrat, and he entertained all the ideas of the law and the subjects of those whom the law strikes. He had not yet accomplished all progress, we admit. He had not yet come to distinguish between that which is written by man and that which is written by God, between law and right. He had not examined and weighed the right which man takes to dispose of the irrevocable and the irreparable. He was not shocked by the word vindicate. He found it quite simple that certain breaches of the written law should be followed by eternal suffering. And he accepted as the process of civilization social damnation. He still stood at this point, though safe to advance infallibly later on, since his nature was good and at bottom wholly formed of latent progress. In the stage of his ideas, Jean Valjean appeared to him hideous and repulsive. He was a man reproved. He was the convict. That word was for him like the sound of the trump in the day of judgment. And after having reflected upon Jean Valjean for a long time, his final gesture had been to turn away his head, va des retros. Marius, if we must recognize and even insist upon the fate, while interrogating Jean Valjean to such a point that Jean Valjean has said, You are confessing me, had not nevertheless put to him two or three decisive questions. It was not that they had not presented themselves to his mind, but that he had been afraid of them. The Gendred Attic, the Barricade, Javert. Who knows where these revelations would have stopped. Jean Valjean did not seem like a man who would draw back, and who knows whether Marius, after having urged him on, would not have himself desired to hold him back. Has it not happened to all of us, in certain supreme conjunctures, to stop our ears, in order that we may not hear the reply, after we have asked a question? It is especially when one loves that one gives way to his exhibitions of cowardice. It is not wise to question sinister situations to the last point, particularly when the insoluble side of our life is fatally intermingled with them. What a terrible light might have proceeded from the disparate explanations of Jean Valjean, and who knows whether that hideous glare would not have darted forth as far as Cazette. Who knows whether a sort of infernal glow would not have lingered behind it on the brow of that angel. The spattering of a lightning flash is of the thunder also. Fatality has points of juncture where innocence itself is stamped with crime by the gloomy law of the reflections which give color. The purest figures may forever preserve the reflection of a horrible association. Rightly or wrongly Marius had been afraid. He already knew too much. He sought to dull his senses rather than to gain further light. Just may he bore off Cazette in his arms and shed his eyes to Jean Valjean. That man was the night, the living and horrible night. How should he dare to seek the bottom of it? It is a terrible thing to interrogate the shadow. Who knows what its reply will be? The dawn may be blackened forever by it. In the state of mind the thought that the man would henceforth come into any contact whatever with Cazette was a heart-rending perplexity to Marius. He now almost reproached himself for not having put these formidable questions before which he had recoiled and from which an implacable and definitive decision might have sprung. He felt that he was too good, too gentle, too weak, if we must say the word. This weakness had led him to an imprudent concession. He had allowed himself to be touched. He had been in the wrong. He ought to have simply and purely rejected Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean played the part of fire, and that is what he should have done and have freed his house from that man. He was vexed with himself. He was angry with that whirlwind of emotions which had deafened, blinded, and carried him away. He was displeased with himself. What was he to do now? Jean Valjean's visits were profoundly repugnant to him. What was the use in having that man in his house? What did the man want? Every became dismayed. He did not wish to dig down. He did not wish to penetrate deeply. He did not wish to sound himself. He had promised. He allowed himself to be drawn into a promise. Jean Valjean held his promise. One must keep one's word, even to a convict, above all to a convict. Still, his first duty was to cosette. In short, he was carried away by the repugnance which dominated him. Paris turned over all this confusion ideas in his mind passing from one to the other and moved by all of them. Hence arose a profound trouble. It was not easy for him to hide this trouble from cosette. But love is a talent, and Mary succeeded in doing it. However, without any apparent object he questioned cosette, who was as candid as a dove as white, and who suspected nothing. He talked to her childhood and her youth. And he became more and more convinced that that convict had been everything good, paternal, and respectable that a man can be towards cosette. All that Marius had caught a glimpse of and had surmised was real. That sinister nettle had loved and protected that lily.