 Chapter 7 of Book 5 of Les Misérables Vol. 2 by Victor Hugo. Book 5 for a Black Hunt, a Mute Pack. Chapter 7 Continuation of the Enigma The night wind had risen, which indicated that it must be between one and two o'clock in the morning. Poor Cosette said nothing. As she had seated herself beside him and leaned her head against him, Jean Valjean had fancied that she was asleep. He bent down and looked at her. Cosette's eyes were wide open and her thoughtful air pained Jean Valjean. She was still trembling. Are you sleepy? said Jean Valjean. I am very cold! she replied. A moment later she resumed, Is she still there? Oh! said Jean Valjean. Madame Tenardier! Jean Valjean had already forgotten the means which he had employed to make Cosette keep silent. Ah! said he. She is gone. You need fear nothing further. The child's side, as though a load had been lifted from her breast. The ground was damp. The shed open on all sides. The breeze grew more keen every instant. The good man took off his coat and wrapped it round Cosette. Are you less cold now? said he. Oh! yes, Father! Well, wait for me a moment. I will soon be back. He quitted the ruin and crept along the large building, seeking a better shelter. He came across doors, but they were closed. There were bars at all the windows of the ground floor. Just after he had turned the inner angle of the edifice, he observed that he was coming to some arched windows where he perceived a light. He stood on tiptoe and peeped through one of these windows. They all opened on a tolerably vast hall, paved with large flagstones, cut up by arcades and pillars, where only a tiny light and great shadows were visible. The light came from a taper which was burning in one corner. The apartment was deserted and nothing was stirring in it. Nevertheless, by dint of gazing intently, he thought he perceived on the ground something which appeared to be covered with a winding sheet, and which resembled a human form. This form was lying face downward, flat on the pavement, with the arms extended in the form of a cross in the immobility of death. One would have said, judging from a sort of serpent which undulated over the floor, that this sinister form had a rope round its neck. The whole chamber was bathed in that mist of places which are barely illuminated, which adds to horror. Jean Valjean often said afterwards that, although many funereal spectres had crossed his path in life, he had never beheld anything more blood-curdling and terrible than that enigmatic form accomplishing some inexplicable mystery in that gloomy place and beheld thus at night. It was alarming to suppose that that thing was perhaps dead, and still more alarming to think that it was perhaps alive. He had the courage to plaster his face to the glass and to watch whether the thing would move. In spite of his remaining thus what seemed to him a very long time, the outstretched form made no movement. All at once he felt himself overpowered by an inexpressible terror, and he fled. He began to run towards the shed, not daring to look behind him. It seemed to him that if he turned his head he should see that form following him with great strides and waving its arms. He reached the ruin all out of breath. His knees were giving way beneath him. The perspiration was pouring from him. Where was he? Who could ever have imagined anything like that sort of sepulchre in the midst of Paris? What was this strange house? An edifice full of nocturnal mystery calling to souls through the darkness with the voice of angels, and when they came offering them abruptly that terrible vision, promising to open the radiant portals of heaven and then opening the horrible gates of the tomb. And it actually was an edifice, a house, which bore a number on the street. It was not a dream. He had to touch the stones to convince himself that such was the fact. Cold anxiety, uneasiness, the emotions of the night had given him a genuine fever, and all these ideas were clashing together in his brain. He stepped up to Cazette. She was asleep. The Miserable Volume II by Victor Hugo translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood Book Fifth For a Black Hunt, a Mute Pack Chapter Eight The Enigma Becomes Doubly Mysterious The child had laid her head on a stone and fallen asleep. He sat down beside her and began to think. Little by little, as he gazed at her, he grew calm and regained possession of his freedom of mind. He clearly perceived this truth, the foundation of his life henceforth, that so long as she was there, so long as he had her near him, he should need nothing except for her. He should fear nothing except for her. He was not even conscious that he was very cold since he had taken off his coat to cover her. Nevertheless, a thwart this reverie into which he had fallen, he had heard for some time a peculiar noise. It was like the tinkling of a bell. This sound proceeded from the garden. It could be heard distinctly, though faintly. It resembled the faint, vague music produced by the bells of cattle at night in the pastures. This noise made Valgen turn round. He looked and saw that there was someone in the garden. A being resembling a man was walking amid the bell-glasses of the melon-beds, rising, stooping, halting, with regular movements, as though he were dragging or spreading out something on the ground. This person appeared to limp. Jean Valgen shuddered with the continual tremor of the unhappy. For them everything is hostile and suspicious. They distrust the day because it enables people to see them, and the night because it aids in surprising them. A little while before he had shivered because the garden was deserted, and now he shivered because there was someone there. He fell back from chimerical terrors to real terrors. He said to himself that Javert and the spies had perhaps not taken their departure. That they had no doubt left people on the watch in the street. That if this man should discover him in the garden, he would cry out for help against thieves and deliver him up. He took the sleeping Cosette gently in his arms, and carried her behind a heap of old furniture which was out of use in the most remote corner of the shed. Cosette did not stir. From that point he scrutinised the appearance of the being in the melon-patch. The strange thing about it was that the sound of the bell followed each of this man's movements. When the man approached, the sound approached. When the man retreated, the sound retreated. If he made any hasty gesture, a tremolo accompanied the gesture. When he halted, the sound ceased. It appeared evident that the bell was attached to that man, but what could that signify? Who was this man who had a bell suspended about him like a ram or an ox? As he put these questions to himself, he touched Cosette's hands. They were icy cold. Ah, good God! he cried. He spoke to her in a low voice. Cosette! she did not open her eyes. He shook her vigorously. She did not wake. Is she dead? he said to himself, and sprang to his feet, quivering from head to foot. The most frightful thoughts rushed pel-mel through his mind. There are moments when hideous surmises assail us like a cohort of furies, and violently force the partitions of our brains. When those we love are in question, our prudence invents every sort of madness. He remembered that sleeping the open air on a cold night may be fatal. Cosette was pale, and had fallen at full length on the ground at his feet without a movement. He listened to her breathing. She still breathed, but with a respiration which seemed to him weak and on the point of extinction. How was he to warm her back to life? How was he to rouse her? All that was not connected with this vanished from his thoughts. He rushed wildly from the ruin. It was absolutely necessary that Cosette should be in bed and beside a fire, in less than a quarter of an hour. End of Book 5 Chapter 8 Recording by Ruth Golding Chapter 9 Of Book 5 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 Jonathan Ross Les Miserables Vol. 2 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood Book 5 For a Black Hunt, a Mute Pack Chapter 9 The Man with the Bell He walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden. He had taken in his hand the roll of silver which was in the pocket of his waistcoat. The man's head was bent down, and he did not see him approaching. In a few strides, Jean Valjean stood beside him. Jean Valjean accosted him with a cry, 100 francs. The man gave a start and raised his eyes. You can earn 100 francs, went on Jean Valjean, if you will grant me shelter for this night. The moon shone full upon Jean Valjean's terrified countenance. What? So it is you, Father Madeleine, said the man. That name, thus pronounced, at that obscure hour in that unknown spot by that strange man, made Jean Valjean start back. He had expected anything but that. The person who thus addressed him was a bent and lame old man, dressed almost like a peasant, who wore on his left knee a leather kneecap, whence hung a moderately large bell. His face, which was in the shadow, was not distinguishable. However, the good man had removed his cap, and exclaimed, trembling all over, Ah, good God, how come you here, Father Madeleine? Where did you enter? Du Jézu, did you fall from heaven? There is no trouble about that. If ever you do fall, it will be from there. And what estates you are in? You have no cravat, you have no hat, you have no coat. Do you know you would have frightened anyone who did not know you? No coat, Lord God, are the saints going mad nowadays? But how did you get in here? His words tumbled over each other. The good man talked with a rustic volubility, in which there was nothing alarming. All this was uttered with a mixture of stupefaction and naïve kindliness. Who are you, and what house is this? demanded Jean Valjean. Ah, pardon, this is too much, exclaimed the old man. I am the person for whom you got the place here, and this house is the one where you had me placed. What, you don't recognize me? No, said Jean Valjean. And how happens it that you know me? You saved my life, said the man. He turned. A ray of moonlight outlined his profile, and Jean Valjean recognized old Foch Levant. Ah, said Jean Valjean. So it is you, yes, I recollect you. That is very lucky, said the old man, in a reproachful tone. And what are you doing here? Resumed Jean Valjean. Why I am covering my melons, of course. In fact, at the moment when Jean Valjean accosted him, old Foch Levant held in his hand the end of a straw mat, which he was occupied in spreading over the melon bed. During the hour or thereabouts that he had been in the garden, he had already spread out a number of them. It was this operation which had caused him to execute the peculiar movements observed from the shed by Jean Valjean. He continued, I said to myself, the moon is bright, it is going to freeze. What if I were to put my melons into their great coats? And he added, looking at Jean Valjean with a broad smile, Bardu, you ought to have done the same. But how do you come here? Jean Valjean, finding himself known to this man, at least only under the name of Madeleine, thenceforth advanced only with caution. He multiplied his questions. Strange to say, their roles seemed to be reversed. It was he, the intruder, who interrogated. And what is this bell which you wear on your knee? This, replied Foch Levant, is so that I may be avoided. What, so that you may be avoided? Old Foch Levant winked with an indescribable air. Ah, goodness, there are only women in this house. Many young girls. It appears that I should be a dangerous person to meet. The bell gives them warning. When I come, they go. What house is this? Come, you know well enough. But I do not. Not when you got me the place here as gardener? Answer me as though I knew nothing. Well, then, this is the Petitpique-Pu convent. Memories recurred to Jean Valjean. Chance, that is to say, Providence, had cast him into precisely that convent in the courtier Saint-Antoine, where Old Foch Levant, crippled by the fall from his cart, had been admitted on his recommendation two years previously. He repeated, as though talking to himself, the Petitpique-Pu convent. Exactly, returned Old Foch Levant. But to come to the point, how the douche did you manage to get in here, you, Father Madeleine? No matter if you are a saint, you are a man as well, and no man enters here. You certainly are here. There is no one but me. Still, said Jean Valjean, I must stay here. Ah, good God, cried Foch Levant. Jean Valjean drew near to the Old Man. And said to him in a grave voice, Father Foch Levant, I saved your life. I was the first to recall it, returned Foch Levant. Well, you can do today for me that which I did for you in the olden days. Foch Levant took in his aged, trembling and wrinkled hands, Jean Valjean's two robust hands, and stood for several minutes as though incapable of speaking. At length, he exclaimed, Oh, that would be a blessing from the good God. If I could make you some little return for that, save your life. A wonderful joy had transfigured this old man. His countenance seemed to emit a ray of light. What do you wish me to do? He resumed. That I will explain to you. You have a chamber? I have an isolated hovel yonder. Behind the ruins of the old convent, in a corner which no one ever looks into, there are three rooms in it. The hut was, in fact, so well hidden behind the ruins, and so cleverly arranged to prevent it being seen, that Jean Valjean had not perceived it. Good, said Jean Valjean. Now I am going to ask two things of you. What are they, Montseur-Mayor? In the first place, you are not to tell anyone what you know about me. In the second, you are not to try to find out anything more. As you please, I know that you can do nothing that is not honest, that you have always been a man after the good God's heart, and then, moreover, you it was who placed me here. That concerns you. I am at your service. That is settled, then. Now, come with me. We will go and get the child. Ah, said Voslawan. So there is a child. He added not a word further, and followed Jean Valjean as a dog follows his master. Less than half an hour afterwards, Cozet, who had grown rosy again before the flame of a good fire, was lying asleep in the old gardener's bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat once more. His hat, which he had flung over the wall, had been found and picked up. While Jean Valjean was putting on his coat, Voslawan had removed the bell and kneecap, which now hung on a nail beside a vintage basket that adorned the wall. The two men were warming themselves with their elbows resting on a table upon which Voslawan had placed a bit of cheese, black bread, a bottle of wine, and two glasses. And the old man was saying to Jean Valjean as he laid his hand on the latter's knee, Ah, Father Madeleine, you did that recognize me immediately. You save people's lives, and then you forget them. That is bad. But they remember you. You are an ingrate. Les Miserables, vol. 2 by Victor Hugo, translated by Isabel Florentz-Hapkud, Book 5th for a Black Hunt, a Mute Pack, Chapter 10, which explains how Javert got on the scent. The events of which we have just beheld the reverse side, so to speak, had come about in the simplest possible manner. When Jean Valjean, on the evening of the very day when Javert had arrested him beside Fantine's deathbed, had escaped from the town jail of M. Surrem, the police had supposed that he had betaken himself to Paris. Paris is a maelstrom where everything is lost, and everything disappears in this belly of the world, as in the belly of the sea. No forest hides a man as does that crowd. Fugitives of every sort know this. They go to Paris as to an abyss. There are gulfs which save. The police know it also, and it is in Paris that they seek what they have lost elsewhere. They sought the ex-mayor of M. Surrem. Javert was summoned to Paris to throw light on their researches. Javert had, in fact, rendered powerful assistance in the recapture of Jean Valjean. Javert's zeal and intelligence on that occasion had been remarked by Monsieur Chabouillet, secretary of the prefecture under Comte Anglis. Monsieur Chabouillet, who had, moreover, already been Javert's patron, had the inspector of M. Surrem attached to the police force of Paris. There, Javert rendered himself useful in divers, and, though the word may seem strange for such services, honourable manners. He no longer thought of Jean Valjean. The wolf of today causes those dogs who are always on the chase to forget the wolf of yesterday, when, in December 1823, he read a newspaper, he who never read newspapers. But Javert, a monarchial man, had a desire to know the particulars of a triumphal entry of the Prince Generalissimo into Bayonne. Just as he was finishing the article, which interested him, a name, the name of Jean Valjean, attracted his attention at the bottom of the page. The paper announced that the convict Jean Valjean was dead, and published the fact in such formal terms that Javert did not doubt it. He confined himself to the remark, that's a good entry. Then he threw aside the paper, and thought no more about it. Sometime afterward, it chanced that a police report was transmitted from the prefecture of the Saint-Étoile to the prefecture of police in Paris, concerning the abduction of a child, which had taken place under peculiar circumstances, as it was said, in the commune of Montfermille. A little girl of seven or eight years of age, the report said, who had been entrusted by her mother to an innkeeper of that neighborhood, had been stolen by a stranger. This child answered to the name of Cossette, and was the daughter of a girl named Fantine, who had died in the hospital. It was not known where or when. This report came under Javert's eye, and set him to thinking. The name of Fantine was well known to him. He remembered that Jean Valjean had made him, Javert, burst into laughter, by asking him for a respite of three days, for the purpose of going to fetch that creature's child. He recalled the fact that Jean Valjean had been arrested in Paris, at the very moment when he was stepping into the coach for Montfermille. Some signs had made him suspect at the time, that this was the second occasion of his entering that coach, and that he had already, on the previous day, made an excursion to the neighborhood of that village, for he had not been seen in the village itself. What had he been intending to do in that region of Montfermille? It could not even be surmised. Javert understood it now. Fantine's daughter was there. Jean Valjean was going there in search of her. And now this child had been stolen by a stranger. Who could that stranger be? Could it be Jean Valjean? But Jean Valjean was dead. Javert, without saying anything to anybody, took the coach from the pewter platter, called a sac de la planche, and made a trip to Montfermille. He expected to find a great deal of light on the subject there. He expected to find a great deal of light on the subject there. He found a great deal of obscurity. For the first few days Bethanardiers had chattered in their rage, the disappearance of Valarque had created a sensation in the village. He immediately obtained numerous versions of the story, which ended in the abduction of a child, hence the police report. But their first vexation having passed off, Thernardier, with his wonderful instinct, had very quickly comprehended that it is never advisable to stir up the prosecutor of the crown, and that his complaints with regard to the abduction of Cassette would have as their first result to fix upon himself and upon many dark affairs which he had on hand, the glittering eye of justice. The last thing that Owl's desires to have a candle brought to them, and in the first place, how explained the 1500 francs which he had received? He turned squarely round, put a gag on his wife's mouth, and feigned astonishment when the stolen child was mentioned to him. He understood nothing about it. No doubt he had grumbled for a while at having that dear little creature taken from him, so hastily, he should have liked to keep her two or three days longer, out of tenderness. But her grandfather had come for her in the most natural way in the world. He added the grandfather, which produced a good effect. This was the story that Javert hit upon when he arrived at Montfermille. The grandfather caused Jean Valjean to vanish. Nevertheless, Javert dropped a few questions like plummets into Thernardier's history. Who was that grandfather, and what was his name? Thernardier replied with simplicity. He is a wealthy farmer. I saw his passport. I think his name was Monsieur Julien Lambert. Lambert is a respectable and extremely reassuring name. Thereupon, Javert returned to Paris. Jean Valjean is certainly dead, said he, and I am a nanny. He had again begun to forget this history when, in the course of March 1824, he heard of a singular personage who dwelt in the parish of Saint Medard, and who had been surnamed the mendicant who gives alms. This person, the story ran, was a man of means, whose name no one knew exactly, and who lived alone with a little girl of eight years, who knew nothing about herself, save that she had come from Montfermille. Montfermille, that name was always coming up, and it made Javert prick up his ears. An old beggar police spy, an ex-beetle to whom this person had given alms, added a few more details. This gentleman of property was very shy, never coming out except in the evening, speaking to no one, except occasionally to the poor, and never allowing anyone to approach him. He wore a horrible old yellow frock coat, which was worth many millions, being all wadded up with bank bills. This piqued Javert's curiosity in a decided manner. In order to get a close look at this fantastic gentleman without alarming him, he borrowed the beetle's outfit for a day, and the place where the old spy was in the habit of crouching every evening, whining horizons through his nose, and playing the spy under cover of prayer. The suspected individual did indeed approach Javert thus disguised, and bestow alms on him. At that moment Javert raised his head, and the shock which Jean Valjean received on recognizing Javert was equal to the one received by Javert when he thought he recognized Jean Valjean. However, the darkness might have misled him. Jean Valjean's death was official. Javert cherished very grave doubts, and when in doubt, Javert, the man of scruples, never laid a finger on anyone's collar. He followed his man to the Gorbo House, and got the old woman to talking, which was no difficult matter. The old woman confirmed the fact regarding the coat lined with millions, and narrated to him the episode of the Thousand Frank Bill. She had seen it, she had handled it. Javert hired a room. That evening he installed himself in it. He came and listened at the mysterious lodger's door, hoping to catch the sound of his voice, but Jean Valjean saw his candle through the keyhole, and foiled the spy by keeping silent. On the following day Jean Valjean decamped, but the noise made by the fall of the Five Frank piece was noticed by the old woman, who, hearing the rattling of coin, suspected that he might be intending to leave, and made haste to warn Javert. At night, when Jean Valjean came out, Javert was waiting for him behind the trees of the boulevard with two men. Javert had demanded assistance at the prefecture, but he had not mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize. That was his secret, and he had kept it for three reasons. In the first place, because the slightest indiscretion might put Jean Valjean on the alert. Next, because to lay hands on an ex-convict who had made his escape and was reputed dead, on a criminal whom justice had formerly clasped forever as among malefactors of the most dangerous sort, was a magnificent success, which the old members of the Parisian police would assuredly not leave to a newcomer like Javert, and he was afraid of being deprived of his convict. And lastly, because Javert, being an artist, had a taste for the unforeseen, he hated those well-heralded successes which are talked of long in advance, and had the bloom brushed off. He preferred to elaborate his masterpieces in the dark, and to unveil them suddenly at the last. Javert had followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, then from corner to corner of the street, and had not lost sight of him for a single instant. Even at the moments when Jean Valjean believed himself to be the most secure, Javert's eye had been on him. Why had not Javert arrested Jean Valjean? Because he was still in doubt. It must be remembered that at the epoch the police was not precisely at its ease. The free press embarrassed it. Several arbitrary arrests denounced by the newspapers had echoed even as far as the chambers, and had rendered the prefecture timid. Interference with individual liberty was a grave matter. The police agents were afraid of making a mistake. The prefect laid the blame on them. A mistake meant dismissal. The reader can imagine the effect which this brief paragraph, reproduced by 20 newspapers, would have caused in Paris. Yesterday an aged grandfather with wide hair, a respectable and well-to-do gentleman, who was walking with his grandchild aged eight, was arrested and conducted to be agency of the prefecture, as an escaped convict. Let us repeat in addition that Javert had scruples of his own. Injunctions of his conscience were added to the injunctions of the prefect. He was really in doubt. Jean Valjean turned his back on him and walked in the dark. Sadness, uneasiness, anxiety, depression. This fresh misfortune of being forced to flee by night, to seek a chance refuge in Paris for cassette and himself, the necessity of regulating his pace to the pace of the child. All this, without his being aware of it, had altered Jean Valjean's walk, and impressed on his bearing such senility that the police themselves, incarnate in the person of Javert, might and did in fact make a mistake. The impossibility of approaching too close, his costume of an emigre preceptor, the declaration of Thernardier which made a grandfather of him, and finally the belief in his death in prison, added still further to the uncertainty which gathered thick in Javert's mind. For an instant it occurred to him to make an abrupt demand for his papers, but if the man was not Jean Valjean, and if this man was not a good, honest old fellow living on his income, he was probably some merry blade deeply and cunningly implicated in the obscure web of Parisian misdeeds, some chief of a dangerous band, who gave alms to conceal his other talents, which was an old dodge. He had trusty fellows, accomplices, retreats in case of emergencies, in which he would, no doubt, take refuge. All these turns which he was making through the streets seemed to indicate that he was not a simple and honest man. To arrest him too hastily would be to kill the hen that laid the golden eggs. Where was the inconvenience in waiting? Javert was very sure that he would not escape. Thus he proceeded in a tolerably perplexed state of mind, putting to himself a hundred questions about this enigmatic personage. It was only quite late in the rue de Pontois that, thanks to the brilliant light thrown from a dram shop, he decidedly recognized Jean Valjean. There are in this world two beings who give a profound start, the mother who recovers her child, and the tiger who recovers his prey. Javert gave that profound start. As soon as he had positively recognized Jean Valjean, the formidable convict, he perceived that there were only three of them, and he asked for reinforcements at the police station of the rue de Pontois. One puts on gloves before grasping a thorn cudgel. This delay, and the halt at the caravan to consult with his agents, came near causing him to lose betrayal. He speedily divined, however, that Jean Valjean would want to put the river between his pursuers and himself. He bent his head and reflected like a bloodhound who puts his nose to the ground to make sure that he is on the right scent. Javert, with his powerful rectitude of instinct, went straight to the bridge of Austerlitz. A word with the tollkeeper furnished him with the information which he required. Have you seen a man with a little girl? I made him pay two sooths, replied the tollkeeper. Javert reached the bridge in season to see Jean Valjean traverse the small, illuminated spot on the other side of the water, leading cassette by the hand. He saw him enter the rue de Chemin there, Sainte-Antoine. He remembered the cul-de-sac, Jean Roule ranged there like a trap, and of the sole exit of the rue drew more into the rue Petit Pispous. He made sure of his back burrows, as huntsmen say. He hastily dispatched one of his agents, by a roundabout way, to guard that issue. A patrol which was returning to the arsenal post having passed him, he made a requisition on it, and caused it to accompany him. In such games soldiers are aces. Moreover, the principle is, that in order to get the best of a wild boar, one must employ the science of venery, and plenty of dogs. These combinations having been affected, feeling that Jean Valjean was caught between the blind alley Jean Roule on the right, his agents on the left, and himself Javert in the rear, he took a pinch of snuff. Then he began the game. He experienced one ecstatic and infernal moment. He allowed his man to go on ahead, knowing that he had him safe, but desirous of postponing the moment of arrest as long as possible. Happy at the thought that he was taken, and yet at seeing him free, gloating over him with his gaze, with that voluptuousness of the spider which allows the fly to flutter, and of the cat which lets the mouse run. Claws and talons possess a monstrous sensuality, the obscure movements of the creature imprisoned in their pincers. What a delight this strangling is. Javert was enjoying himself. The meshes of his net were stoutly knotted. He was sure of success. All he had to do now was close his hand. Accompanied as he was, the very idea of resistance was impossible, however vigorous, energetic, and desperate Jean Valjean might be. Javert advanced slowly, sounding, searching on his way all the nooks of the street like so many pockets of thieves. When he reached the center of the web, he found the fly no longer there. His exasperation can be imagined. He interrogated his sentinel of the rude Roy Moore and Petit Pispous, that agent who had remained imperturbably at his post had not seen the man pass. It sometimes happens that a stag is lost head and horns, that is to say he escapes, although he has the pack on his very heels, and then the oldest huntsman know not what to say. Duvivier, Leneville, and Desprez halt short. In a discomforture of this sort, Arton exclaims, it was not a stag but a sorcerer. Javert would have liked to utter the same cry. His disappointment bordered for a moment on despair and rage. It is certain that Napoleon made mistakes during the war with Russia, that Alexander committed blunders in the war in India, that Caesar made mistakes in the war in Africa, that Cyrus was at fault in the war in Scythia, and that Javert blundered in this campaign against Jean Valjean. He was wrong, perhaps, in hesitating in his recognition of the ex-convict. The first glance should have sufficed him. He was wrong in not arresting him purely and simply in the old building. He was wrong in not arresting him when he had positively recognized him in the rude de Pontois. He was wrong in taking counsel with his auxiliaries in the full light of the moon at the Carrefour-Rolan. Advice is certainly useful. It is a good thing to know and to interrogate those of the dogs who deserve confidence. But the hunter cannot be too cautious when he is chasing uneasy animals, like the wolf and the convict. Javert, by taking too much thought as to how he should set the bloodhounds of the pack on the trail, alarmed the beast by giving him wind of the dart, and so made him run. Above all, he was wrong in that after he had picked up the scent again on the bridge of Austerlitz, he played that formidable and purile game of keeping such a man at the end of a thread. He thought himself stronger than he was, and believed that he could play at the game of the mouse and the lion. At the same time, he reckoned himself as too weak when he judged it necessary to obtain reinforcement, fatal precaution, waste of precious time. Javert committed all these blunders, and nonetheless was one of the cleverest and most correct spies that ever existed. He was, in full force of the term, what is called in venery, a knowing dog. But what is there that is perfect? Great strategists have their eclipses. The greatest follies are often composed, like the largest ropes, of a multitude of strands. Take the cable thread by thread, take all the petty determining motives separately, and you can break them one after the other, and you say, that is all there is of it. Braid them, twist them together. The result is enormous. It is Attila hesitating between Marcian on the east and Valentinian on the west. It is Hannibal tarrying at Capua. It is Danton falling asleep at Arsiss Araub. However that may be, even at the moment when he saw that Jean Valjean had escaped him, Javert did not lose his head. Sure that the convict who had broken his band could not be far off, he established sentinels, he organized traps and ambuscades, and beat the quarter all that night. The first thing he saw was the disorder in the street lantern whose rope had been cut. A precious sign which, however, led him astray, since it caused him to turn all his researches in the direction of the cul-de-sac Jean Roux. In this blind alley there were tolerably low walls, which abutted on gardens whose bounds adjoined the immense stretches of wasteland. Jean Valjean evidently must have fled in that direction. The fact is, that had he penetrated a little further in the cul-de-sac Jean Roux, he would probably have done so and had been lost. Javert explored these gardens and these waste stretches as though he had been hunting for a needle. At daybreak he left two intelligent men on the lookout and returned to the prefecture of police, as much ashamed as a police spy who had been captured by a robber might have been. End of Book 5, Chapter 10. Chapter 1 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 Kailu. Les Miserables, Volume 2, by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood. Book 6, Le Petit Pisfieux. Chapter 1. Number 62, Rue Petit Pisfieux. Nothing half a century ago more resembled every other carriage gate than the carriage gate of Number 62, Rue Petit Pisfieux. This entrance, which usually stood ajar in the most inviting fashion, permitted a view of two things, neither of which have anything very funerial about them. A courtyard surrounded by walls hung with vines and the face of a lounging porter. Above the wall, at the bottom of the court, tall trees were visible. One ray of sunlight enlivened the courtyard when a glass of wine cheered up the porter. It was difficult to pass Number 62 Little Pisfieux Street without carrying away a smiling impression of it. Nevertheless, it was a somber place of which one had had a glimpse. The threshold smiled. The house prayed and wept. If one succeeded in passing the porter, which was not easy, which was even nearly impossible for everyone, for there was an open sesame, which it was necessary to know. If the porter once passed, one entered a little vestibule on the right, on which opened a staircase, shut in between two walls and so narrow that only one person could ascend it at a time. If one did not allow oneself to be alarmed by a dobbing of canary yellow with a dado of chocolate which clothed this staircase, if one ventured to ascend it, one crossed a first landing, then a second, and arrived on the first story at a corridor where the yellow wash and the chocolate-hued plinth pursued one with a peaceable persistency. Staircase and corridor were lighted by two beautiful windows. The corridor took a turn and became dark. If one doubled this cape, one arrived a few paces further on, in front of a door which was all the more mysterious, because it was not fastened. If one opened it, one found oneself in a little chamber about six feet square, tiled, well-scrubbed, clean, cold, and hung with nankin paper with green flowers at fifteen soost the roll. A white dull light fell from a large window with tiny panes on the left, which usurped the whole width of the room. One gazed about but saw no one. One listened. One heard neither a footstep nor a human murmur. The walls were bare. The chamber was not furnished. There was not even a chair. One looked again and beheld on the wall facing the door a quadrangular hole, about a foot square, with a grating of interlacing iron bars, black, knotted, solid, which formed squares, I had almost said meshes, of less than an inch and a half in diagonal length. The little green flowers of a nankin paper ran in a calm and orderly manner to those iron bars, without being startled or thrown into confusion by their funerial contact. Supposing that a living thing had been so wonderfully thin as to essay an entrance or an exit through the square hole, this grating would have prevented it. It did not allow the passage of the body, but it did allow the passage of the eyes, that is to say, of the mind. This seems to have occurred to them, for it had been reinforced by a sheet of tin inserted in the wall a little in the rear and pierced with a thousand holes more microscopic than the holes of a strainer. At the bottom of this plate, an aperture had been pierced exactly similar to the orifice of a letterbox. A bit of tape attached to a bell wire hung at the right of the graded opening. If the tape was pulled, a bell rang, and one heard a voice very near at hand, which made one start. Who is there? The voice demanded. It was a woman's voice, a gentle voice, so gentle that it was mournful. Here, again, there was a magical word which it was necessary to know. If one did not know it, the voice ceased, the wall became silent once more, as though the terrified obscurity of the sepulcher had been on the other side of it. If one knew the password, the voice resumed, enter on the right. One then perceived on the right, facing the window, a glass door surmounted by a frame glazed in painted gray. On raising the latch and crossing the threshold, one experienced precisely the same impression as when one enters at the theater into a graded bachnoir before the grading is lowered and the chandelier is lighted. One was, in fact, in a sort of theater box, narrow, furnished with two old chairs, and a much frayed straw matting, sparely illuminated by the vague light from the glass door, a regular box, with its front just of a height to lean upon, bearing a tablet of black wood. This box was graded, only the grading of it was not of gilded wood, as at the opera. It was a monstrous lattice of iron bars, hideously interlaced and riveted to the wall by enormous fastenings, resembled clenched fists. The first minutes passed, when one's eyes began to grow used to this cellar-like half-twilight, one tried to pass the grading, but got no further than six inches beyond it. There he encountered a barrier of black shutters, reinforced and fortified with transverse beams of wood, painted a gingerbread yellow. These shutters were divided into long, narrow slats, and they masked the entire length of the grading. They were always closed. At the expiration of a few moments, one heard a voice proceeding from behind these shutters, and saying, I am here. What do you wish with me? It was a beloved, sometimes an adored voice. No one was visible. Hardly the sound of a breath was audible. It seemed as though it were a spirit which had been evoked, that was speaking to you across the walls of the tomb. If one chanced to be within certain prescribed and very rare conditions, the slat of one of the shutters opened opposite you. The evoked spirit became an apparition. Behind the grading, behind the shutter, one perceived so far as the grading permitted sight ahead, of which only the mouth and the chin were visible. The rest was covered with a black veil. One caught a glimpse of a black gimp, and a form that was barely defined, covered with a black shroud. That head spoke with you, but did not look at you and never smiled at you. The light which came from behind you was adjusted in such a manner that you saw her in the white, and she saw you in the black. This light was symbolical. Nevertheless, your eyes plunged eagerly through that opening, which was made in that place shut off from all glances. A profound vagueness enveloped that form clad in mourning. Your eyes searched at that vagueness, and sought to make out the surroundings of the apparition. At the expiration of a very short time, you discovered that you could see nothing. What you beheld was night, emptiness, shadows. A wintry mist mingled with a vapor from the tomb. A sort of terrible peace. A silence from which you could gather nothing, not even sighs. A gloom in which you could distinguish nothing, not even phantoms. What you beheld was the interior of a cloister. It was the interior of that severe and gloomy edifice which was called the convent of the Bernardines of the perpetual adoration. The box in which you stood was the parlor. The first voice which had addressed you was that of the fortress, who always sat motionless and silent, on the other side of the wall, near the square opening, screened by the iron grating, and the plate with its thousand holes, as by a double visor. The obscurity which bathed the great box arose from the fact that the parlor, which had a window on the side of the world, had none on the side of the convent. Profane eyes must see nothing of that sacred place. Nevertheless, there was something beyond that shadow. There was a light. There was life in the midst of that death. Although this was the most strictly walled of all convents, we shall endeavor to make our way into it, and to take the reader in. And to say, without transgressing proper bounds, things which storytellers have never seen, and have, therefore, never described. End of Book 6, Chapter 1. Chapter 2 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 Amy Shewitz. Les Miserables, Volume 2 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabelle Florence-Hapgood. Book 6, Le Petit Picpio, Chapter 2, The Obedience of Martin Verga This convent, which, in 1824, had already existed for many a long year in the Ru Petit Picpio, was a community of Bernadines in the Obedience of Martin Verga. These Bernadines were attached, in consequence, not to clairvoy, like the Bernadine monks, but to sito, like the Benedictine monks. In other words, they were the subjects not of Saint Bernard, but of Saint Benoit. Anyone who has turned over old folios to any extent knows that Martin Verga founded, in 1425, a congregation of Bernadines-Benedictines, with Salamanca for the head of the order, and Alcala as the branch establishment. This congregation had sent out branches throughout all the Catholic countries of Europe. There is nothing unusual in the Latin Church in these graphs of one order on another. To mention only a single order of Saint Benoit, which is here in question, there are attached to this order without counting the Obedience of Martin Verga. Four congregations, two in Italy, Mont-Cassin and Saint-Chustin of Padua, two in France, Cluny and Saint-Mor. And nine orders, Valombrosa, Gramon, the Celestans, the Camadules, the Carthusians, the Humiles, the Oliveters, the Silvestrans, and lastly, Sittot. For Sittot itself, a trunk for other orders, is only an offshoot of Saint Benoit. Sittot dates from Saint-Rober, Abbe de Molesma, in the Diocese of Longre, in 1098. Now it was in 529 that the devil, having retired to the desert of Subiaco, he was old, had he turned hermit, was chased from the ancient Temple of Apollo. Where he dwelt, by Saint Benoit, then age 17. After the rule of the Carmelites, who go barefoot, wear a bit of willow on their throats, and never sit down, the harshest rule is that of the Bernadine Benedictines, of Martin Vergat. They are clothed in black, with a gimp, which, in accordance to the express command of Saint Benoit, mounts to the chin, a robe of serige with large sleeves, a woolen veil, the gimp which mounts to the chin, cuts square on the breast, the band which descends over their brow to their eyes, this is their dress. All is black except the band, which is white. The novices wear the same habit, but all in white. The professed nuns also wear a rosary at their side. The Bernadine Benedictines, of Martin Vergat, practiced the perpetual adoration, like the Benedictines, called Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, who, at the beginning of this century, had two houses in Paris, one at the temple, the other in the Rune de Saint Geneviève. However, the Bernadine Benedictines, of the Petit Picpeau, of whom we are speaking, were a totally different order from the Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, cloistered in the Rune de Saint Geneviève, and at the temple. There were numerous differences in their rule. There were some in their costume. The Bernadine Benedictine, of the Petit Picpeau, wore the black cape, and the Benedictine of the Holy Sacrament, and of the Rune de Saint Geneviève, wore a white one, and had, besides, on their breasts, a Holy Sacrament, about three inches long, in silver, gilt or gilded copper. The nuns of the Petit Picpeau did not wear this Holy Sacrament. The perpetual adoration, which was common to the house of the Petit Picpeau, and to the house of the temple, leaves those two orders perfectly distinct. Their only resemblance lies in this practice of the Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, and the Bernadines of Martin Verga. Just as there existed a similarity in the study and the glorification of all the mysteries relating to the infancy, the life and the death of Jesus Christ in the Virgin, between the two orders, which were, nevertheless, widely separated, and on occasion even hostile. The Oratory of Italy established at Florence by Philip de Néry, and the Oratory of France, established by Pierre de Beirut. The Oratory of France claimed the precedence, since Philip de Néry was only a saint, while Beirut was a cardinal. Let us return to the harsh Spanish rule of Martin Verga. The Bernadine Benedictines of this obedience, fast all the year round, abstain from meat, fast in lint, and on many other days, which are peculiar to them, rise from their first sleep from one to three o'clock in the morning to read their breviary into chant mountains, sleep in all seasons between surge sheets and on straw, make no use of the bath, never light of fire, scourge themselves every Friday, observe the rule of silence, speak to each other only during the recreation hours, which are very brief, and wear drug-it chemises for six months in the year, from September 14th, which is the exaltation of the Holy Cross until Easter. These six months are a modification. The rule says all the year, but this drug-it chemise, intolerable in the heat of summer, produced fevers and nervous spasms. The use of it had to be restricted. Even with this palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the 14th of September, they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, chastity, perseverance in their seclusion, these are their vows, which the rule greatly aggravates. The prioresse is elected for three years by the mothers, who are called mere vocal because they have a voice in the chapter. A prioresse can only be re-elected twice, which fixes the longest possible reign of a prioresse at nine years. They never see the officiating priest, who is always hidden from them by a surge curtain nine feet in height. During the sermon, when the preacher is in the chapel, they drop their veils over their faces. They must always speak low, walk with their eyes on the ground and their heads bowed. One man only is allowed to enter the convent. The archbishop of the diocese. There is really one other, the gardener, but he is always an old man and in order that he may always be alone in the garden and that the nuns may be warned to avoid him, a bell is attached to his knee. Their submission to the prioresse is absolute and passive. It is the canonical subjection in the full force of its abnegation as at the voice of Christ at a gesture at the first sign, ad nutum, ad primum signum, immediately with cheerfulness, with perseverance, with a certain blind obedience, as in the file in the hand of the workman, without power to read or to write, without express permission, Each one of them in turn makes what they call reparation. The reparation is the prayer for all the sins, for all the faults, for all the dissensions, for all the violations, for all the iniquities, for all the crimes committed on earth, for the space of twelve consecutive hours, from four o'clock in the afternoon till four o'clock in the morning, or from four o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, the sister who is making reparation remains on her knees, on the stone before the holy sacrament, with hands clasped, a rope around her neck. When her fatigue becomes unendurable, she prostrates herself flat on her face against the earth, with her arms outstretched in the form of a cross. This is her only relief. In this attitude she prays for all the guilty in the universe. This is great to sublimity. As this act is performed in front of a post on which burns a candle, it is called without distinction to make reparation or to be at the post. The nuns even prefer out of humility, this last expression, which contains an idea of torture and abasement. To make reparation is a function in which the whole soul is absorbed. The sister at the post would not turn round were a thunderbolt to fall directly behind her. Besides this, there is always a sister kneeling before the holy sacrament. This station lasts an hour. They relieve each other like soldiers on guard. This is the perpetual adoration. The prioresses and the mothers almost always bear names stamped with peculiar solemnity, recalling not the saints and martyrs, but moments in the life of Jesus Christ. As mother nativity, mother conception, mother presentation, mother passion, but the names of saints are not interdicted. When one sees them, one never sees anything but their mouths. All their teeth are yellow. No toothbrush ever entered that convent. Brushing one's teeth is at the top of a letter at whose bottom is the loss of one's soul. They never say my. They possess nothing of their own, and they must not attach themselves to anything. They call everything our, thus, our veil, our chaplet. If they were speaking of their chemise, they would say our chemise. Sometimes they grow attached to some petty object, to a book of ours, a relic, a medal that has been blessed. As soon as they become aware that they are a growing attached to this object, they must give it up. They recall the words of Saint Therese, to whom a great lady said that she was on the point of entering her order. Permit me, mother, to send for a Bible to which I am greatly attached. Ah, you are attached to something. In that case, do not enter our order. Every person, whatever, is forbidden to shut herself up, to have a place of her own, a chamber. They live with their cells open. When they meet, one says, Blessed and adored, be the most holy sacrament of the altar. The other responds, forever. The same ceremony when one taps at the other's door. Hardly has she touched the door when a soft voice on the other side is heard to say hastily, forever. Like all practices, this becomes mechanical by force of habit, and one sometimes says forever before the other has had time to say the rather long sentence, praised and adored, be the most holy sacrament of the altar. Among the visitandines, the one who enters says Ave Maria, and the one who his cell has entered says Grazia Plena. It is their way of saying Good Day, which is in fact full of grace. At each hour of the day, three supplementary strokes sound from the church bell of the convent. At this signal, prioresse, vocal mothers, professed nuns, lay sisters, noses, postulence, interrupt what they are saying, what they are doing, or what they are thinking, and all say in unison if it is five o'clock, for instance. At five o'clock and at all hours, praised and adored, be the most holy sacrament of the altar. If it is eight o'clock, at eight o'clock and at all hours, and so on, according to the hour. This custom, the object of which is to break the thread of thought, and to lead it back constantly to God, exists in many communities. The formula alone varies. Thus at the infant Jesus, they say, at this hour and at every hour may the love of Jesus kindle my heart. The Bernadine Benedictines of Martin Vergat, cloistered 50 years ago at Petit Picpio, chant the offices to a solemn solitude, a pure Gregorian chant, and always with full voice during the whole course of the office. Everywhere in the mistletoe where an asterisk occurs, they pause and say in a low voice, Jezus Marie Joseph. For the office of the dead, they adopt a tone so low that the voices of women can hardly descend to such a depth. The effect produced is striking and tragic. The nuns of the Petit Picpio had made a vault under their grand altar for the burial of their community. The government, as they say, does not permit this vault to receive coffins, so they leave the convent when they die. This is an affliction to them, and it causes them consternation as an infraction of the rules. They had obtained a mediocre consolation at best. Her mission to be interred at a special hour and in a special corner in the ancient Vogueerard Cemetery, which was made of land which had formerly belonged to their community. On Fridays, the nuns hear high mass, vespers, and all the offices as on Sunday. They scrupulously observe in addition to all the little festivals unknown to people of the world, of which the Church of France was so prodigal in the olden days, and of which it is still prodigal in Spain and Italy. Their stations in the chapel are interminable. As for the number and duration of their prayers, we can convey no better idea of them than by quoting the ingenuous remark of one of them. The prayers of the postulants are frightful, the prayers of the novices are still worse, and the prayers of the professed nuns are still worse. Once a week, the chapter assembles the priorist presides, the vocal mothers assist. Each sister kneels and turn on the stones and confesses aloud in the presence of all the faults and sins which she has committed during the week. The vocal mothers consult after each confession and inflict the penance aloud. Besides this confession and a loud tone for which all faults in the least serious are reserved, they have for their venial offenses what they call the coop. To make one's coop means to prostrate oneself flat on one's face during the office in front of the priorist until the latter who is never called anything but our mother notifies the culprit by a slight tap of her foot against the wood of her stall that she can rise. The coop or per chavi is made for a very small matter a broken glass, a torn veil, an involuntary delay of few seconds at an office a false note in church, etc. This suffices in the coop is made the coop is entirely spontaneous it is the culpable person herself the word is etymologically in its place here who judges herself and inflicts it on herself on festival days and Sundays four mother press enters and tone the offices before a large reading desk with four places one day one of the mother presenters intoned a psalm beginning with etche and instead of etche she uttered aloud the three notes dosy soul for this piece of absent-mindedness she underwent a coop which lasted during the whole service what rendered the fall enormous was the fact that the chapter had laughed when a nun is summoned to the parlor even were at the priorist herself she drops her veil as will be remembered so that only her mouth is visible the priorist alone can hold communication with strangers the others can only see their immediate family in that very rarely if by chance an outsider presents herself to see a nun or one whom she has known and loved in the outer world a regular series of negotiations is required if it is a woman the authorization may sometimes be granted the nun comes and they talk to her through the shutters which are opened only for a mother or sister it is unnecessary to say that permission is always refused to men such is the rule of saint benoit aggravated by martin verga these nuns are not gay rosy and fresh as the daughters of other orders often are they are pale in grave between 1825 and 1830 three of them went mad end of book six chapter two recording by amy shewith chapter three of book six of le miserable volume two by victor ugo this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by ruse golding le miserable volume two by victor ugo translated by isabel florence hapgood book six le petit picpus chapter three austerities one is a postulant for two years at least often for four a novice for four it is rare that the definitive vows can be pronounced earlier than the age of 23 or 24 years the bernardine's benedictines of martin verga do not admit widows to their order in their cells they deliver themselves up to many unknown macerations of which they must never speak on the day when a novice makes her profession she is dressed in her handsomest attire she is crowned with white roses her hair is brushed until it shines and curled then she prostrates herself a great black veil is thrown over her and the office for the dead is sung then the nuns separate into two files one file passes close to her saying in plaintive accents our sister is dead and the other file responds in a voice of ecstasy our sister is alive in jesus christ at the epoch when this story takes place a boarding school was attached to the convent a boarding school for young girls of noble and mostly wealthy families among whom could be remarked mom zeal de saint au laire and de bellissan and an english girl bearing the illustrious catholic name of tulbert these young girls reared by these nuns between four walls grew up with a horror of the world and of the age one of them said to us one day the sight of the street pavement made me shudder from head to foot they were dressed in blue with a white cap and a holy spirit of silver guilt or of copper on their breast on certain grand festival days particularly saint martha's day they were permitted as a high favour and a supreme happiness to dress themselves as nuns and to carry out the offices and practice of samba noir for a whole day in the early days the nuns were in the habit of lending them their black garments this seemed profane and the prioress forbade it only the novices were permitted to lend it is remarkable that these performances tolerated and encouraged no doubt in the convent out of a secret spirit of proselytism and in order to give these children a foretaste of the holy habit were a genuine happiness and a real recreation for the scholars they simply amused themselves with it it was new it gave them a change candid reasons of childhood which do not however succeed in making us worldlings comprehend the felicity of holding a holy water sprinkler in one's hand and standing for hours together singing hard enough for four in front of a reading desk the pupils conformed with the exception of the austerities to all the practices of the convent there was a certain young woman who entered the world and who after many years of married life had not succeeded in breaking herself of the habit of saying in great haste whenever anyone knocked at her door forever like the nuns the pupils saw their relatives only in the parlour their very mothers did not obtain permission to embrace them the following illustrates to what a degree severity on that point was carried one day a young girl received a visit from her mother who was accompanied by a little sister three years of age the young girl wept for she wished greatly to embrace her sister impossible she begged that at least the child might be permitted to pass her little hand through the bars so that she could kiss it this was almost indignantly refused end of book 6 chapter 3 recording by Ruth Golding chapter 4 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 Ruth Golding Les Miserables volume 2 by Victor Hugo translated by Isabelle Florence Hatgood book 6 le petit-pique-pousse chapter 4 Géatise nonetheless these young girls filled this grave house with charming souvenirs at certain hours childhood sparkled in that cloister the recreation hour struck a door swung on its hinges the bird said good here come the children an eruption of youth inundated that garden intersected with a cross like a shroud radiant faces white foreheads innocent eyes full of merry light all sorts of auroras were scattered about amid these shadows after the summaries the bells the peals and knells and offices the sound of these little girls burst forth on a sudden more sweetly than the noise of bees the hive of joy was opened and each one brought her honey they played they called to each other they formed into groups they ran about pretty little white teeth chattered in the corners the veils superintended the laughs from a distance shades kept watch of the sunbeams but what mattered it still they beamed and laughed those four lugubrious walls had their moment of dazzling brilliancy they looked on vaguely blanched with the reflection of so much joy at this sweet swarming of the hives it was like a shower of roses falling a thwart this house of mourning the young girls froliced beneath the eyes of the nuns the gaze of impeccability does not embarrass innocence thanks to these children there was among so many austere hours one hour of ingenuousness the little ones skipped about the elder ones danced in this cloister play was mingled with heaven nothing is so delightful and so august as all these fresh expanding young souls homo would have come thither to laugh with perro and there was in that black garden use health noise cries giddiness pleasure happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles of all their ancestresses those of the epic as well as those of the fairy tale those of the throne as well as those of the thatched cottage from hecuba to la mer grand in that house more than anywhere else perhaps arise those children's sayings which are so graceful and which evoke a smile that is full of thoughtfulness it was between those four gloomy walls that a child of five years exclaimed one day mother one of the big girls has just told me that i have only nine years and ten months longer to remain here what happiness it was here too that this memorable dialogue took place a vocal mother why are you weeping my child the child aged six i told alex that i knew my french history she says that i do not know it but i do alex the big girl aged nine no she does not know it the mother how is that my child alex she told me to open the book at random and to ask her any question in the book and she would answer it well she did not answer it let us see about it what did you ask her i opened the book at random as she proposed and i put the first question that i came across and what was the question it was what happened after that it was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy parochet which belonged to a lady border how well bred it eats the top of the slice of bread and butter just like a person it was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once picked up a confession which had been written out in advance in order that she might not forget it by a sinner of seven years father i accuse myself of having been avaricious father i accuse myself of having been an adulteress father i accuse myself of having raised my eyes to the gentleman it was on one of the turf benches of this garden that a rosy mouth six years of age improvised the following tale which was listened to by blue eyes aged four and five years there were three little cocks who owned a country where there were a great many flowers they plucked the flowers and put them in their pockets after that they plucked the leaves and put them in their playthings there was a wolf in that country there was a great deal of forest and the wolf was in the forest and he ate the little cocks and this other poem there came a blow with a stick it was punchinello who bestowed it on the cat it was not good for her it hurt her then a lady put punchinello in prison it was there that a little abandoned child a foundling whom the convent was bringing up out of charity uttered this sweet and heartbreaking saying she heard the others talking of their mothers and she murmured in her corner as for me my mother was not there when i was born there was a stout portrait who could always be seen hurrying through the corridors with her bunch of keys and whose name was sister agatha the big big girls those over ten years of age called her agatha cleese the refectory a large apartment of an oblong square form which received no light except through a vaulted cloister on a level with the garden was dark and damp and as the children say full of beasts all the places round about furnished their contingent of insects each of its four corners had received in the language of the pupils a special and expressive name there was spider corner caterpillar corner woodlouse corner and cricket corner cricket corner was near the kitchen and was highly esteemed it was not so cold there as elsewhere from the refectory the names had passed to the boarding school and there served as in the old college masarin to distinguish four nations every pupil belonged to one of these four nations according to the corner of the refectory in which she sat at meals one day monsignor the archbishop while making his pastoral visit saw a pretty little rosy girl with beautiful golden hair enter the classroom through which he was passing he inquired of another pupil a charming brunette with rosy cheeks who stood near him who is that she is a spider monsignor and that one yonder she is a cricket and that one she is a caterpillar really and yourself i am a woodlouse monsignor every house of this sort has its own peculiarities at the beginning of this century ecouan was one of those strict and graceful places where young girls pass their childhood in a shadow that is almost august at ecouan in order to take rank in the procession of the holy sacrament a distinction was made between virgins and florists there were also the dais in the censors the first who held the cords of the dais and the others who carried incense before the holy sacrament the flowers belonged by right to the florists four virgins walked in advance on the morning of that great day it was no rare thing to hear the question put in the dormitory who is a virgin madame compon used to quote this saying of a little one of seven years to a big girl of sixteen who took the head of the procession while she the little one remained at the rear you are a virgin but i am not end of book sixth chapter four recording by ruth golden chapter five of book six of le miserable volume two by victor ugo this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by ruth golden the miserable volume two by victor ugo translated by isabel florin's hat good book six le petit pique puce chapter five distractions above the door of the refectory this prayer which was called the white pattern oster and which possessed the property of bearing people straight to paradise was inscribed in large black letters little white pattern oster which god made which god said which god placed in paradise in the evening when i went to bed i found three angels sitting on my bed one at the foot two at the head the good virgin mary in the middle who told me to lie down without hesitation the good god is my father the good virgin is my mother the three apostles are my brothers the three virgins are my sisters the shirt in which god was born envelopes my body st margaret's cross is written on my breast madame the virgin was walking through the meadows weeping for god when she met mrs st john mrs st john whence come you i come from aves alas you have not seen the good god where is he he is on the tree of the cross his feet hanging his hands nailed a little cap of white thorns on his head whoever shall say this thrice at eventide thrice in the morning shall win paradise at the last in 1827 this characteristic horizon had disappeared from the wall under a triple coating of daubing paint at the present time it is finally disappearing from the memories of several who were young girls then and who are old women now a large crucifix fastened to the wall completed the decoration of this refectory whose only door as we think we have mentioned opened on the garden two narrow tables each flanked by two wooden benches formed two long parallel lines from one end to the other of the refectory the walls were white the tables were black these two morning colors constitute the only variety in convents the meals were plain and the food of the children themselves severe a single dish of meat and vegetables combined or salt fish such was their luxury this meager fare which was reserved for the pupils alone was nevertheless an exception the children ate in silence under the eye of the mother whose turn it was who if a fly took a notion to fly or to hum against the rule opened and shot a wooden book from time to time this silence was seasoned with the lives of the saints read aloud from a little pulpit with a desk which was situated at the foot of the crucifix the reader was one of the big girls in weekly turn at regular distances on the bare tables there were large varnished bowls in which the pupils washed their own silver cups and knives and forks and into which they sometime threw some scrap of tough meat or spoiled fish this was punished these bowls were called hondos the child who broke the silence made a cross with her tongue where on the ground she licked the pavement the dust that end of all joys was charged with the chastisement of those poor little rose leaves which had been guilty of chirping there was in the convent a book which has never been printed except as a unique copy and which it is forbidden to read it is the rule of samba noir an arcanum which no profane eye must penetrate nemo regulas sil constituntiones nostras externis comunicarbit the pupils one day succeeded in getting possession of this book and set to reading it with avidity a reading which was often interrupted by the fear of being caught which caused them to close the volume precipitately from the great danger thus incurred they derived but a very moderate amount of pleasure the most interesting thing they found were some unintelligible pages about the sins of young boys they played in an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabby fruit trees in spite of the extreme surveillance and the severity of the punishments administered when the wind had shaken the trees they sometimes succeeded in picking up a green apple or a spoiled apricot or an inhabited pear on the sly i will now cede the privilege of speech to a letter which lies before me a letter written five and twenty years ago by an old pupil now madame la duchesse de blank one of the most elegant women in paris i quote literally one hides one's pear or one's apple as best one may when one goes upstairs to put the veil on the bed before supper one stuffs them under one's pillow and at night one eats them in bed and when one cannot do that one eats them in the closet that was one of their greatest luxuries once it was at the epoch of the visit from the archbishop to the convent one of the young girls mamzele bouchard who was connected with the mormonsi family laid a wager that she would ask for a day's leave of absence an enormity in so austere community the wager was accepted but not one of those who bet believed that she would do it when the moment came as the archbishop was passing in front of the pupils mamzele bouchard to the indescribable terror of her companions stepped out of the ranks and said Monseigneur a day's leave of absence mamzele bouchard was tall blooming with the prettiest little rosy face in the world monsieur de killer smiled and said what my dear child a day's leave of absence three days if you like i grant you three days the prioresse could do nothing the archbishop had spoken horror of the convent but joy of the pupil the effect may be imagined this stern cloister was not so well walled off however but that the life of the passions of the outside world drama and even romance did not make their way in to prove this we will confine ourselves to recording here and to briefly mentioning a real and incontestable fact which however bears no reference in itself to and is not connected by any thread whatever with the story which we are relating we mentioned the fact for the sake of completing the physiognomy of the convent in the reader's mind about this time there was in the convent a mysterious person who was not a nun who was treated with great respect and who was addressed as madame albertine nothing was known about her save that she was mad and that in the world she passed for dead beneath this history it was said there lay the arrangements of fortune necessary for a great marriage this woman hardly thirty years of age of dark complexion and tolerably pretty had a vague look in her large black eyes could she see there was some doubt about this she glided rather than walked she never spoke it was not quite known whether she breezed her nostrils were livid and pinched as after yielding up their last sigh to touch her hand was like touching snow she possessed a strange spectral grace wherever she entered people felt cold one day a sister on seeing her pass said to another sister she passes for a dead woman perhaps she is one replied the other a hundred tales were told of madame albertine this arose from the eternal curiosity of the pupils in the chapel there was a gallery called lay debauch it was in this gallery which had only a circular bay and a debauch that madame albertine listened to the offices she always occupied it alone because this gallery being on the level of the first story the preacher or the officiating priest could be seen which was interdicted to the nuns one day the pulpit was occupied by a young priest of high rank monsieur le duke de rohan pierre of france officer of the red musketeers in 1815 when he was prince de leon and who died afterward in 1830 as cardinal and archbishop of bezoncel it was the first time that monsieur de rohan had preached at the petit pic plus convent madame albertine usually preserved perfect calmness and complete immobility during the sermons and services that day as soon as she caught sight of monsieur de rohan she half rose and said in a loud voice amid the silence of the chapel ah august the whole community turned their heads in amazement the preacher raised his eyes but madame albertine had relaxed into her immobility a breath from the outer world a flash of life had passed for an instant across that cold and lifeless face and had then vanished and the mad woman had become a corpse again those two words however had set everyone in the convent who had the privilege of speech to chattering how many things were contained in that ah august what revelations monsieur de rohan's name really was august it was evident that madame albertine belonged to the very highest society since she knew monsieur de rohan and that her own rank there was of the highest since she spoke thus familiarly of so great a lord and that there existed between them some connection of relationship perhaps but a very close one in any case since she knew his pet name two very severe duchesses madame de choiseul and de serran often visited the community whether they penetrated no doubt in virtue of the privilege magnates mullieres and caused great consternation in the boarding school when these two old ladies passed by all the poor young girls trembled and dropped their eyes moreover monsieur de rohan quite unknown to himself was an object of attention to the school girls at that epoch he had just been made while waiting for the episcopate vicar general of the archbishop of paris it was one of his habits to come tolerably often to celebrate the offices in the chapel of the nuns of the petit-pique-pousse not one of the young recluses could see him because of the surge curtain but he had a sweet and rather shrill voice which they had come to know and to distinguish he had been a muscataire and then he was said to be very coquettish that his handsome brown hair was very well dressed in a roll around his head and that he had a broad girdle of magnificent noir and that his black cassock was of the most elegant cut in the world he held a great place in all these imaginations of sixteen years not a sound from without made its way into the convent but there was one year when the sound of a flute penetrated thither this was an event and the girls who were at school there at the time still recall it it was a flute which was played in the neighborhood this flute always played the same air an air which is very far away nowadays my zettelbe come rain oh my soul and it was heard two or three times a day the young girls passed hours in listening to it the vocal mothers were upset by it brains were busy punishments descended into showers this lasted for several months the girls were all more or less in love with the unknown musician each one dreamed that she was zettelbe the sound of the flute proceeded from the direction of the rue droit mur and they would have given anything compromised everything attempted anything for the sake of seeing of catching a glance if only for a second of the young man who played that flute so deliciously and who no doubt played on all these souls at the same time there were some who made their escape by a back door and ascended to the third story on the rue droit mur side in order to attempt to catch a glimpse through the gaps impossible one even went so far as to thrust her arm through the grating and to wave her white handkerchief two were still bolder they found means to climb on a roof and risk their lives there and succeeded at last in seeing the young man he was an old emigre gentleman blind and penniless who was playing his flute in his attic in order to pass the time end of book six chapter five chapter six of book six of lemise arable volume two by victor yugo this is a liver vox recording all liver vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liver vox dot org recording by paradise camouflage lemise arable volume two by victor yugo translated by isabel florence hapegate book six le petit pic pu chapter six the little convent and thus in closure of the petit pic pu there were three perfectly distinct buildings the great convent inhabited by the nuns the boarding school where the scholars were lodged and lastly what was called a little convent it was a building with a garden in which lived all sorts of aged nuns of various orders the relics of cloisters destroyed in the revolution a reunion of all the black gray and white medallies of all communities and all possible varieties what might be called if such a coupling of words is permissible a sort of harlequin convent when the empire was established all those poor old dispersed and exiled women had been accorded permission to come and take shelter under the wings of the bernadine benedictine the government paid them a small pension the ladies of the petit pic pu received them cordially it was a singular each followed her own rule sometimes the pupils of the boarding school were allowed as a great recreation to pay them a visit the result is that all those young memories have retained amongst other souvenirs that of mother saint pazil mother saint scholastic and mother jacob one of these refugees found herself almost at home she was a nun of saint or the only one of her order who had survived the ancient convent of the ladies of saint or occupied at the beginning of the 18th century this very house of the petit pic pu which belonged later to the benedictines of martin verga this holy woman too poor to wear the magnificent habit of her order which was a white robe with a scarlet scapulary had piously put it on a little mannequin which she exhibited with complacency in which she bequeathed to the house at her death in 1824 only one nun of this order remained today there remains only a doll in addition to these worthy mothers some old society women had obtained permission of the priors like madame albertine to retire into the little convent among the number were madame bouffard doutpou and marquise du frene another was never known in the convent except by the formidable noise which she made when she blew her nose the pupils called her madame varkhamini hubbub about 1820 or 1821 madame dejan li who was at that time editing a little periodical publication called l'entrepide asked to be allowed to enter the convent of the petit pic pu as lady resident the duke der liens recommended her uproar in the hive the vocal mothers were all in a flutter madame dejan li had made romances but she declared that she was the first to detest them and then she had reached her fierce stage of devotion with the aid of god and of the prince she entered she departed at the end of six or eight months alleging as a reason that there was no shade in the garden that nuns were delighted although very old she still played the harp and did it very well when she went away she left her mark in her cell madame dejan li was superstitious and a latinist these two words furnish a tolerably good profile of her a few years ago there was still to be seen pasted in the inside of a little cupboard in her cell which she locked up her silverware and her jewels these five lines in latin written with her own hand in red ink on yellow paper and which in her opinion possessed the property of frightening away robbers versus ticas these verses in sixth century latin raised the question whether the two thieves of calogary were named as is commonly believed digmai gestas or dismassi gismas this photography might have confounded the pretensions put forward in the last century by the vicom justa of a descent from the wicked thief however the useful virtue attached to these verses forms an article of faith in the order of the hospitalier the church of the house constructed in such a manner as to separate the great convent from the boarding school like a veritable entrenchment was of course common to the boarding school the great convent and the little convent the public was even admitted by a sort of lazaretto entrance on the street but all was so arranged that none of the inhabitants of the cloister could see a face from the outside world suppose a church whose choir is grasped in a gigantic hand and folded in such a manner as to form not as in ordinary churches a prolongation behind the altar but a sort of hall or obscure cellar to the right of the officiating priest suppose this hall to be shut off by a curtain seven feet in height of which we have already spoken in the shadow of that curtain pile up on wooden stalls the nuns in the choir on the left the schoolgirls on the right the lay sisters and the novices at the bottom and you will have some idea of the nuns of the petipipi assisting at davai in service that cavern which was called the choir communicated with the cloister by a lobby the church was lighted from the garden when the nuns were present at services where their rule enjoined silence the public was warned of the presence only by the folding seats of the stalls noisily rising and falling end of book six chapter six recording by andy in invardon scotland mel ys dot ws chapter seven of book six of the miserable volume two this is a liberavocs recording all liberavocs recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liberavocs dot org recording by paradise camouflage les misiables volume two by victor rugo translated by isabel flance hubgood book six le petipipi chapter seven some silhouettes of this darkness during the six years which separate 1819 from 1825 the priors of the petipipi was mademoiselle de blemer whose name in religion was mother innocent she came of the family of marquerie de blemer author of lives of the saints of the order of saint benoit she had been reelected she was a woman about 60 years of age short thick singing like a cracked pot says the letter which we have already quoted an excellent woman moreover and they only marry one in the whole convent and for that reason adored she was learned erudite wise competent curiously proficient in history crammed with latin stuffed with greek full of hebrew and more of a benedictine monk than a benedictine nun the sub-priorice was an old spanish man mother sinérez who is almost blind the most esteemed among the vocal mothers was mother saint honorine the treasure mother saint gertrude the chief mistress of the novices mother saint ange the assistant mistress mother annonciation the sacriston mother saint augustine the nurse the only one in the convent who is malicious then mother saint merche tilde mamoiselle govain very young and with a beautiful voice mother des anges mademoiselle druet who had been in the convent of the fee jeu and in the convent du trésor between jizard and mani mother saint joseph mamoiselle de gogoludu mother saint adelaide mademoiselle de vernet mother misery court mamoiselle de syfonte who could not resist austerities mother compassion mamoiselle de la mitière received at the age of 60 in defiance of the rule and very wealthy mother providence mamoiselle de l'audenière mother presentation mamoiselle de siguenza who was priress in 1847 and finally mother saint seligne sister of the sculptor seraki who went mad mother saint chantal mamoiselle de susan who went mad there was also among the prettiest of them a charming girl of three and twenty who was from the isle du bourbon a descendant of the chevalier rose whose name had been mamoiselle rose and who was called mother assumption mother saint misty interested with the singing in the choir was fond of making use of the pupils in this quarter she usually took a complete scale of them that is to say seven from ten to sixteen years of age inclusive of assorted voices and sizes whom she made sing standing drawn up in a line side by side according to age from the smallest to the largest this presented to the eye something in the nature of a reed pipe of young girls a sort of living pan pipe made of angels those of the lave sisters whom the scholars loved most were sister effrasy sister saint marguerite sister saint mart who was in her dotage and sister saint michelle whose long nose made them laugh all these women were gentle with the children the nuns were severe only towards themselves no fire was lighted except in the school and the food was choice compared to that in the convent moreover they lavished a thousand cares on their scholars only when a child passed near a nun and addressed her the nun never replied this rule of silence had had this effect that throughout the whole convent speech had been withdrawn from human creatures and bestowed on inanimate objects that was the church bell which spoke that was the gardener's bell a very sonorous bell placed beside the fortress and which was audible throughout the house indicated by its varied peels which formed a sort of acoustic telegraph all the actions of material life which were to be performed and summoned to the parlor in case of need such or such an inhabitant of the house each person in each thing had its own peel the prioress had one and one the sub prioress one and two six five announced lessons so that the pupils never said go to lessons but to go to six five four four was madame de jen lee's signal it was very often heard it's a very deuce said the uncharitable ten iron strokes announced a great event it was the opening of the door of seclusion a frightful sheet of iron bristling with bolts which only turned on its hinges in the presence of the archbishop with the exception of the archbishop and the gardener no man entered the convent as we have already said the schoolgirls saw two others one the chaplain the abeban old and ugly whom they were permitted to contemplate in the choir through a greeting the other the drog master mon jour ansio whom the latter of which we have perused a few lines calls mon jour ansio and describes as a frightful old hunchback it will be seen that all these men were carefully chosen such was this curious house end of book six chapter seven recording by andy in verand in scotland mel ys