Chapter 1 of Book 5 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 Isabelle Florence Hapgood. Book 5. Grandson and Grandfather. Chapter 1. In which the tree with the zinc plaster appears again. Some time after the events which we have just recorded, Sir Boulatrel experienced a lively emotion. Sir Boulatrel was that road-mender of Mont-Fermel whom the reader has already seen in the gloomy parts of this book. Boulatrel, as the reader may perchance recall, was a man who was occupied with divers and troublesome matters. He broke stones and damaged travelers on the highway. Road-mender and thief as he was, he cherished one dream. He believed in the treasures buried in the forests of Mont-Fermel. He hoped some day to find the money in the earth at the foot of the tree. In the meanwhile he lived to search the pockets of passerbys. Nevertheless, for an instant he was prudent. He had just escaped neatly. He had been, as the reader is aware, picked up in Jean-Drette's garrette, in the company with the other ruffians. Utility of a vice, his drunkenness had been his salvation. The authorities had never been able to make out whether he had been there in the quality of a robber or a man who had been robbed. An order of null prosaqui founded on his well-authenticated state of intoxication on the evening of the ambush had set him at liberty. He had taken to his heels. He had returned to his road from Garnier to Legnier to make, under administrative supervision, broken stone for the good of the state, with downcast mean in a pensive mood. The order for thief somewhat cooled, but he was addicted nonetheless tenderly to the wine which had recently saved him. As for the lively emotion which he had experienced a short time after his return to his road-menders turf-thatched cot, here it is. One morning Bouletrel, on his way as his want to his work, and possibly also to his ambush, a little before daybreak, caught sight through the branches of the trees of a man, whose back alone he saw, but the shape of his shoulders, as it seemed to him at that distance and in the early dusk, was not entirely unfamiliar to him. Bouletrel, although intoxicated, had a correct and lucid memory, a defensive arm that is indispensable to anyone who is at all in conflict with legal order. Where the deuce have I seen someone like that man yonder? he said to himself, but he could make himself no answer, except that the man resembled someone of whom his memory preserved a confused trace. However, apart from the identity which he could not manage to catch, Bouletrel put things together and made calculations. This man did not belong in the countryside, he had just arrived there, on foot evidently. No public conveyance passed us through Montfermel at that hour. He had walked all night, whence came he? Not from a very great distance, for he had neither haversack nor bundle, from Paris no doubt. Why was he in these woods? Why was he here at such an hour? What had he come there for? Bouletrel thought of the treasure. By dint of ransacking his memory, he recalled a vague way that he had already, many years before, had a similar alarm in connection with a man who produced on him the effect that he might well be this very individual. By the deuce at Bouletrel, I'll find him again. I'll discover the parish of that parishner. This prowler of Matronet, Manette, has a reason and I know it. People can't have secrets in my forest if I don't have a finger in the pie. He took his pickaxe, which was very sharply pointed, there now he grumbled, is something that will search the earth and a man. And, as one knot's one thread to another thread, he took up the line of a march at his best pace in the direction which the man must follow and set out across the thickets. When he had compassed a hundred strides the day, which was already beginning to break, came to his assistance. Footprints stamped in the sand, weeds trodden down here and there, heather crushed, young branches in the brush would bent, and in the act of straightening themselves up again with the graceful deliberation of the arms of a pretty woman who stretches herself up when she wakes, pointed him out, a sort of track. He followed it, then lost it. Time was flying. He plunged deeper into the woods and came to a sort of eminence. An early huntsman who was passing in the distance along the path, whistled the air of gullery, suggested to him the idea of climbing a tree. Old as he was, he was agile. There stood, close at hand, a beech-tree of great size, worthy of Titerus and of Boulotrel. Boulotrel ascended the beach as high as he was able. The idea was a good one. On scrutinizing the solitary waste on the side where the forest is thoroughly entangled and wild, Boulotrel suddenly caught sight of his man. Hardly has he got his eye upon him when he lost sight of him. The man entered, or rather glided into, an open glade at a considerable distance, masked by large trees, but with which Boulotrel was perfectly familiar.  This glade was the one which was formerly called Bla-Ru-Bautem. The heap of stones destined for no one knows what employment, which was visibly there thirty years ago, is doubtless still there. Nothing equals a heap of stones in longevity, unless it is a bored fence. They are temporary expedience. What a reason for lasting. Boulotrel, with rapidity of joy, dropped rather than descending from the tree. The lair was unearthed. The question now was to seize the beast. That famous treasure of his dreams was probably there. It is no small matter to reach that glade. By the beaten pass, which indulged in a thousand teasing zig-zags, it required a good quarter of an hour. In a beeline, through the underbrush, which is a peculiarly dense, very thorny, and very aggressive in that locality, a full half hour was necessary. Boulotrel committed the error of not comprehending this. He believed in the straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man. The thicket, bristling as it was, struck him as a best road. Let's take to the wolves Ruda Ruvali, he said. Boulotrel, accustomed to taking crooked courses, was on this occasion guilty of the fault of going straight. He flung himself resolutely into the tangle of undergrowth. He had to deal with hollybushes, nettles, hawthorns, eglateens, thistles, and very irascible brandables. He was much lacerated. At the bottom of the ravine he found water which he was obligated to traverse. At last he reached the Babu Badam. After the lapse of forty minutes, sweating, soaked, breathless, scratched, and furious. There was no one in the glade. Boulotrel reached the heap of stones. It was in its place. It had not been carried off. As for the man, he had vanished into the forest. He had made his escape. Where? In what direction? Into what thicket? Impossible to guess.  The hole was empty. Thief! shrieked Boulotrel, shaking his fist at the horizon. Chapter 2 of Book 5 of Les Miserables Volume 5 by Victor Hugo Book 5, Grandfather and Grandson. Chapter 2 Marius, emerging from civil war, makes ready for domestic war. For a long time Marius was neither dead nor alive. For many weeks Elena fever, accompanied by delirium, and by tolerably grave cerebral symptoms, caused more by the shocks of the wounds on the head than by the wounds themselves. He repeated Cosette's name for whole nights in the melancholy locacity of fever, and with the somber obstinacy of agony. The extent of some of the lesions presented at serious danger, the saturation of large wounds being always liable to become reabsorbed and consequently to kill the sick man under certain atmospheric conditions, at every change of weather, at the slightest storm, the physician was uneasy. Above all things, he repeated, led the wounded man be subjected to no emotion. The dressing of the wounds was complicated and difficult. The fixation of apparatus and bandages by sea-cloths, not having been invented as yet, at that epoch. Nicolette used upper sheet as big as the ceiling, as she put it, for lint. It was not without difficulty that the chlorinated lotions and the nitrate of silver overcame the gangrene. As long as there was any danger, Monsieur Gilnomore seated in despair at his grandson's pillow, was, like Marius, neither alive nor dead. Every day, sometimes twice a day, a very well-dressed gentleman with white hair, such was the description given by the porter, came to inquire about the wounded man, and left a large package of lint for the dressings. Finally, on the 7th of September, four months to a day after the sorrowful night, when he had been brought back to his grandfather in a dying condition, the doctor declared that he would answer for Marius. Convalescence began. But Marius was forced to remain for two months more, stretched out on a long chair, on account of the results called up by the fracture of his collarbone. There always is a last wound like that, which will not close, and which prolongs the dressings indefinitely, to the great annoyance of the sick person. However, this long illness and this long convalescence saved him from all pursuit. In France there is no wrath, not even of a public character, which six months will not extinguish.  Let us add that the inexcusable Giscay order, which enjoined doctors to lodge information against the wounded, having outraged public opinion, and not opinional alone, but the king first of all, the wounded were covered and protected by this indignation. And, with the exception of those who had been made prisoners in the very act of combat, the councils of war did not dare to trouble any one. So Marius was left in peace. Monsieur Gilnomore first passed through a manner of anguish, and then through every form of ecstasy. It was found difficult to prevent his passing every night beside the wounded man. He had his big armchair carried to Marius's bedside. He required his daughter to take the finest linen in the house for compresses and bandages. Mademoiselle Gilnomore, like a sage and elderly person, contrived to spare the fine linen, while allowing the grandfather to think that he was obeyed. Monsieur Gilnomore would not permit any one to explain to him that for the preparation of lint Baptiste is not nearly so good as coarse linen, nor new linen as old linen. He was present at all the dressings of the wound from which Mademoiselle Gilnomore modestly absented herself. When the dead flesh was cut away with scissors, he said, Aye, aye! Nothing was more touching than to see him with his gentle senile palsy offer the wounded man a cup of his calling-draft. He overwhelmed the doctor with questions. He did not observe that he asked the same ones over and over again. On the day when the doctor announced to him that Marius was out of danger, the good man was in a delirium. He made his porter a present of three Louis. That evening, on his return to his own chamber, he danced a gavotte, using his thumb and forefinger as castanets, and he sang the following song. Qu'est-ce que tu mets ton aqua? Moi je l'achante et j'aime, plus que d'y en même, j'en essais dure-t-en breton. Love thou dwellest in her, for t'is in her eyes that thou places thy quiver slice-camp. As for me, I sing her, and I love, more than Diana herself, Jean and her femme breton breasts. Then he knelt upon a chair and a basket, who was watching him through the half-open door, made sure that he was praying. Up to that time he had not believed in God. At each succeeding phase of improvement, which became more and more pronounced, the grandfather raved.  He ascended and descended the stairs, without knowing why. A pretty female neighbour was amazed one morning at receiving a big bouquet. It was M. Gilnomore who had sent it to her. The husband made a jealous scene. M. Gilnomore tried to draw a nicolette upon his knees. He called Marius, M. Le Baran, he shouted, long live the republic. Every moment he kept asking the doctor, is he no longer in danger? He gazed upon Marius with the eyes of a grandmother. He brooded over him while he ate. He no longer knew himself. He no longer rendered himself an account of himself. Marius was the master of the house. There was abdication in his joy. He was the grandson of his grandson. In the state of joy in which he then was, he was the most venerable of children. In his fear lest he might fatigue or annoy the convalescent, he stepped behind him to smile. He was content, joyous, delighted, charming, young.  When Grace is mingled with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an indescribable aurora in beaming old age. As for Marius, as he allowed them to dress his wounds and care for him, he had but one fixed idea. Cosette. After the fever and delirium had left him, he did not again pronounce her name, and it might have been supposed that he no longer thought of her. He held his peace, precisely because his soul was there. He did not know what had become of Cosette. The whole affair of the rue de la chanverie was like a cloud in his memory. Shadows that were almost indistinct floated through his mind. Eponine, Gavrosche, Mabuff, the Ténardier, all his friends gloomily intermingled with the smoke of the barricade. The strange passage of M. Fort Levant, through that adventure produced on him the effect of a puzzle in a tempest.  He did not know how, nor by whom he had been saved, and no one of those around him knew this. All that they had been able to tell him was, that he had been brought home at night in a hackney-coach, to the rue des filles du cavers. Past, present, future were nothing more to him than the midst of a vague idea. But in that fog there was one immovable point, one clear and precise outline, something made of granite, a resolution, a will, to find Cosette once more. For him the idea of life was not distinct from the idea of Cosette. He had decreed in his heart that he would not accept the one without the other, and he was immovably resolved to exact of any person whatever, who should desire to force him to live, from his grandfather, from fate, from hell, the restitution of his vanished Eden. He did not conceal from himself the fact that obstacles existed. Let us here emphasize one detail. He was not one over, and was but little softened by all the solicitude and tenderness of his grandfather. In the first place he was not in the secret. Then in his reveries of an invalid, which was still feverish, possibly he distrusted this tenderness as a strange and novel thing, which had for its object his conquest. He remained cold. The grandfather absolutely wasted his poor old smile. Marius said to himself that this was all right, so long as he, Marius, did not speak, and let things take their course. But that when it became a question of Cosette, he would find another face, that his grandfather's true attitude would be unmasked. Then there would be an unpleasant scene, a recredescence of family questions, a confrontation of positions, every sort of sarcasm and all manner of objections, at one and the same time. Foche le vent, coupe le vent, fortune, poverty, a stone about his neck, the future. Violent resistance, conclusion, a refusal. Marius stiffened himself in advance. And then, in proportion as he regained life, the old ulcers of his memory opened once more. He reflected again on the past. Colonel Pomercy placed himself once more between Mr. Gilnomore and him, Marius. He told himself that he had no true kindness to expect from a person who had been so unjust and so hard to his father. And with health there returned to him a sort of harshness toward his grandfather. The old man was gently pained by this. Mr. Gilnomore, without however allowing it to appear, observed that Marius, ever since the latter had been brought back to him and had regained consciousness, had not once called him father. It is true that he did not say Monsieur to him, but he contrived not to say either the one or the other by means of a certain way of turning his phrases. Obviously a crisis was approaching. As almost always happens in such cases, Marius skirmished before giving battle by way of proving himself. This is called feeling the ground. One morning it came to pass that Mr. Gilnomore spoke slightly of the convention, apropos of a newspaper which had fallen into his hands, and gave vent to a royalist rang on Danton, Saint-Just and Robespierre. The men of ninety-three were giants, said Marius with severity. The old man held his peace and uttered not a sound during the remainder of that day. Marius, who had always present to his mind the inflexible grandfather of his early years, interpreted this silence as a profound concentration of wrath, argued from it a hot conflict and augmented his preparations for the fray in the inmost recesses of his mind. He decided that, in case of a refusal, he would tear off his bandages, dislocate his collarbone, that he would lay bare all the wounds which he had left, and would reject all food. His wounds were his munitions of war. He would have cosette or die. He awaited the propitious moment with the crafty patience of the sick. That moment arrived. Chapter 3 Marius Attacked One day, Miseur Guillemond, while his daughter was putting in order the vials and cups on the marble of the commode, bent over Marius and said to him in his tenderest accent, Look here, my little Marius, if I was in your place I would eat meat now in preference to fish. A fried soul is excellent to begin a convalescence with, but a good cutlet is needed to put a sick man on his feet. Marius, who had almost entirely recovered his strength, collected the whole of it, drew himself off into a sitting posture, laid his two cleansed fists on the seat of the bed, looked his grandfather in the face, assumed a terrible air and said, This leads me to say something to you. What is it? Did I wish to marry? Agreed, said his grandfather, and he burst out laughing. How agreed? Yes, agreed. You shall have your little girl. Marius, stunned and overwhelmed with a dazzling shock, trembled in every lip. Miseur Guillemond went on, Yes, you shall have her, that pretty little girl of yours. She comes every day in the shape of an old gentleman to acquire after you. Ever since you were wounded, she has passed her time in weeping and making lint. I have made inquiries. She lives in the rue des l'homme à la main. Number 7. Ah, there we have it. Ah, so you want her? Well, you shall have her. You're caught. You had arranged your little plot. You had said to yourself, I'm going to signify this squarely to my grandfather, to that mummy of the Regency and of the Directory, to that ancient beau, to that gerante, turned gerante. He has indulged his frivolities also, that he has. And he has had his love affairs, and his grizzettes, and his cosettes. He has made his rustle. He has had his wings. He has eaten of the bread of spring. He certainly must remember it. Ah, you take that caught chaffer by the horns. That's good. I offer you a cutlet and you answer me by the way I want to marry. There's a transition for you. Ah, you reckoned on that bickering.  What do you say to that? You were vexed. You do not expect to find your grandfather still more foolish than yourself. You were wasting this discourse which you meant to bestow upon me, Mr. Lawyer. And that's fixatious. Well, so much the worse. Rage away. I'll do whatever you wish. And that cuts you short, imbecile. Listen. I've made my inquiries. I'm cunning too. She is charming. She is discreet. It is not true about the Lancer. She has made heaps of lynch. She is a jewel. She adores you. If you had died, there would have been three of us. Her coffin would have accompanied mine. I've had an idea, ever since you have been better, of simply planting her at your bedside. But it is only in romances that young girls are brought to the bedsides of handsome young wounded men who interest them. It is not done. What would your aunt have said to it? You were nude three quarters of the time, my good fellow. Ask Nicolette, who has not left you for a moment, if there was any possibility of having a woman here. And then what would the doctor have said? A pretty girl does not cure a man of fever. In short, it's all right. Let us say no more about it. All's done. All said. It is all settled, taker. Such is my ferocity. You see, I perceive that you did not love me. I said to myself, here now, I have my little cosette right under my hand. I'm going to give her to him. He will be obliged to love me a little then, or he must tell me the reason why. Ah! So you thought that the old man was going to storm, to put on a big voice, to shout no, and to lift his cane at all that aurora. Not a bit of it. Cosette, so be it. Love, so be it. I asked nothing better. Pray, take the trouble of getting married, sir. Be happy, my well-beloved child. That said, the old man burst forth into sobs, and he seized Marius' head and pressed it with both arms against his breast and both fell to weeping. This is one of the forms of supreme happiness. Father, cried Marius. Ah! So you love me, said the old man. An affable moment ensued. They were choking and could not speak. At length, the old man stammered. Come, his mouth is unstoppable at last. He has said, Father to me. Marius disengaged his head from his grandfather's arms and said gently, But, Father, now that I am quite well, it seems to me that I might see her. Agreed. Again, you shall see her tomorrow. Father! What? Why not today? Well, today then. Let it be today. You have called me Father three times, and it is worth it. I will attend to it. She shall be brought hither. Agreed, I tell you. It has already been put to verse. It is the ending of the elegy of the Jeune Malade by André Chalet. By André Chalet, whose throat was cut by the giants of 93, M. Germain fancied that he had detected a faint frown on the part of Marius, who in truth, as we admit, was no longer listening to him and who was thinking far more of crocette than of 1793. The grandfather, trembling at having so inopportunately introduced André Chalet resumed precipitously. Cut his throat was not the word. The fact is that the great revolutionary geniuses who were not malicious, that is, incontestable, who were heroes, Partis found that André Chalet embarrassed them somewhat, and they had him guillot. That is to say, those great men on the seventh of Thermidor besought André Chalet in the interest of public safety to be so good as to go, M. Germain, clutched by the throat of it by his own phrase, could not proceed. Being able neither to finish it nor to retract it, while his daughter arranged the pillow behind Marius, who was overwhelmed with so many emotions, the old man rushed headlong with as much rapidity as his age permitted from the bedchamber.  His eyes started from his head. He found himself nose to nose with honest basque, who was blacking boots in the enter room. He seized basque by the collar and shouted full in his face in fury, By a hundred thousand jevots of the devil those ruffians did assassinate him. Who, sir? André Chalet? Yes, sir, said basque in alarm. End of Book 5, Chapter 3 Chapter 4 and 5 of Book 5 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 Roseanne Schmidt. Les Miserables. Volume 5 by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabelle Florence-Hepgood. Book 5, Grandson and Grandfather. Chapters 4 and 5 Chapter 4. Mamouselle Giroune-Roman. Ends by no longer thinking that a bad thing that Manchaud, Fauchne-Leval, should have entered with something under his arm. Cozette and Mariusz held each other once more. What that interview is like we declined to say. There are things which one must not attempt to depict. The son is one of them. The entire family, including Basque and Nicolette, entered Manchaud's chamber at the moment when Cozette entered it. Precisely at that moment, the grandfather was on the point of blowing his nose. He stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief. Engaging over it at Cozette, she appeared on the threshold. It seemed to him that she was surrounded by a glory. Adorable, he exclaimed. Then he blew his nose noisily. Cozette was intoxicated, delighted, frightened, in heaven. She was as thoroughly alarmed as anyone can be by happiness. She stammered, all pale, yet flushed. She wanted to fling herself into Mariusz's arms and dared not. Ashamed of loving in the presence of all these people, people are pitiless towards happy lovers. They remain when the latter most desire to be left alone. Lovers have no need of any people, whatever. With Cozette and behind her, there had entered a man with white hair, who was grave yet smiling, though with a vague and heartrending smile. It was Manchaud Fauchne-Leval. It was Jean Valjean. He was very well dressed, as the porter had said, entirely in black, in perfectly new garments and with a white cravat. The porter was a thousand leagues from recognizing, in this correct bergoy, in this probable notary, the fear-inspiring bearer of the corpse, who had sprung up at his door on the night of the 7th of June, tattered, muddy, hideous, haggard, his face masked in blood and mire, supporting in his arms the fainting Marius. Still, his porter's scent was aroused. When Manchaud Fauchne-Leval arrived with Cozette, the porter had not been able to refrain from communicating to his wife this aside. I don't know why it is, but I can't help fencing that I've seen that face before. Manchaud Fauchne-Leval, in Marius' chamber, remained a part near the door he had under his arm a package which bore considerable resemblance to an octavo-volume enveloped in paper. The enveloped in paper was of a greenish hue and appeared to be moldy. Does the gentleman always have books like that under his arm? Mademoiselle Gérône-Roman, who did not like books demanded in a low tone of Nicollet, well, retorted Mademoiselle Gérône-Roman who had overheard her in the same tone. He's a learned man. What then, is that his fault? Manchaud Boulère, one of my acquaintances, never walked out without a book under his arm either and he always had some old volume hugged to his heart like that and with a bow, he said aloud, Manchaud Fauchne-Leval, Father Gérône-Roman did not do it intentionally but intention to proper names was an aristocratic habit of his. Manchaud Fauchne-Leval, I have the honor of asking you on behalf of my grandson Baron Marous Popmossi, for the hand of Mademoiselle. Manchaud Fauchne-Leval bowed. That settled, said the grandfather, and turning to Marous and Cozzet, with both arms extended in blessing, he cried, permission to adore each other. They did not require him to repeat it twice. So much the worse. The chirping began. They talked low, Marous resting on his elbow on his reclining chair, Cozzet standing beside him. Oh heavens, murmured Cozzet, I see you once again, it is thou, it is you, the idea of going and fighting like that is why it is horrible. I had been dead for four months. Oh, how wicked it was of you to go to that battle. What had I done to you? I pardon you, but you will never do it again. A little while ago, when they came to tell us to come to you, I still thought that I was about to die, but it was from joy. I was so sad I have not taken the time to dress myself. I must frighten people with my looks. What will your relatives say to see me in a crumpled collar? Do speak, you let me do all the talking. We are still in the rudala home arm. It seems that your shoulder was terrible. They told me that you could put your fist in it. And then it seems that they cut your flesh with the scissors. That is frightful. I have cried till I have no eyes left. It is clear that a person can suffer like that. Your grandfather has a very kind air. Don't disturb yourself. Don't rise on your elbow. You will injure yourself. Oh, how happy I am. So our unhappiness is over. I have said things to say to you and I no longer know in the least what they were. Do you still love me? We live in the rudala home arm. There is no garden. I made lint all the time. Stay, sir. Look, it is your fault. I have a callus on my finger. Angel, said Mayus. Angel is the only word in the language that cannot be worn out. No other word could resist the merciless use which lovers make of it. Then as they were spectators, they paused and said not a word more, contending themselves with softly touching each other's hands. Monsieur Gilernon turned towards those who were in the room and cried. Talk loud the rest of you.  Come a little uproar, the deuce, so that the children can chatter at their ease. And approaching Mayus and Cozette, he said to them in a very low voice, call each other thou, don't stand on ceremony. Aunt Gilernon looked on in astonishment at this eruption of light in her elderly household. There was nothing aggressive about this amazement. It was not the least in the world like the scandalized and envious glance of an owl at two turtle doves.  It was a life which had been a failure gazing at that triumph. Love. Mamouselle Gironnement, Senor, said her father to her. I told you that this is what would happen to you. He remained silent for a moment and then added, look at the happiness of others. Then he turned to Cozette. How pretty she is, how pretty she is. She's a grooves. So you are going to have that all to yourself, you scamp. Ah, my rogue, you are getting off nicely with me. You are happy. If I were not 15 years too old, we would fight with swords to see which of us should have her come now. I am in love with you, Mademoiselle. It's perfectly simple. It is your right. You are in the right.  Our parish is Saint-Denis-Sousa-en-Sacrament. But I will get a dispensation so that you can be married at Saint-Paul. The church is better. It was built by the Jesuits. It is more coqueres. It is opposite the fountain of Cardenille-des-Barrec. The masterpiece of Jesuit architecture is at Numerre. It is called Saint-Loup.  It is worth the journey, Mademoiselle. I am quite of your mind. I think girls ought to marry. That is what they are made for. There is a certain son, Catherine, whom I should always like to see uncoiffed. It's a fine thing to remain a spinster, but it is chilly. What is needed is multiply. In order to save the people, Jean, the Ark, is needed. But in order to make people, what is needed is Mother Goose. So marry, my beauties. I really do not see the use in remaining a spinster. I know that they have their chapel apart in the church and that they fall back on the Society of the Virgin.  That's better than holding a candle at Vespers and chanting Therese Eburnay. The grandfather executed a pirouette on his 80-year-old heels and began to talk again like a spring that has broken loose once more. Anci, bornat, le corps d'etre, ravacir, revasari, alcipe, ilet-don, vri, danse, pudu, te, marie. By the way, what is it, Father? Have not you an intimate friend? Yes, Corfinnac. What has become of him? He is dead, and that is good. He seated himself near them, made Cossettes sit down, and took their forehands in his aged and wrinkled hands. She is exquisite this, darling. She is a masterpiece, this Cossette. She is a very young girl and a very great lady. She will only be a Baroness, which is a calm-down for her. She was born a marquis. What eyelashes she has. Get it well fixed in your noodles, my children, that you are in the true road. Love each other. Be foolish about it. Love is the folly of men in the wit of God. Adore each other. Only, he added, suddenly becoming gloom. What a misfortune. Half of what I possess has swallowed up in an annuity. So long as I live, it will not matter, but after my death, a score of years hence, my poor children, you will not have a soul.  At this point, they heard a grave and tranquil voice say, ma mouselle de fraigie, fachelaval, possesses 600,000 francs. It was the voice of Jean Valjean. Far, he had not uttered a single word. No one seemed to be aware that he was there, and he had remained standing erect and motionless behind all these happy people. What has ma mouselle de fraigie to do with the question, inquired the star old grandfather? I am she, replied Cosette. 600,000 francs, resumed Mancio Girondement. Minus 14 or 15,000 francs, possibly, said Jean Valjean, and he laid on the table the package. Which, ma mouselle Girondement, had mistaken for a book. Jean Valjean, himself, opened the package. It was a bundle of bank notes. They were turned over and counted. There were 500 notes for 1,000 francs each and 168 of 500. In all, 584,000 francs. This is a fine book. C'est major, ma mouselle Girondement. 500 at 84,000 francs, murmured the aunt. This arranges things well, does it not, ma mouselle Girondement, senior, said the grandfather. That devil of a Marius has ferreted out the nest of a millionaire, grizzette, in his tree of dreams. Just trust to the love affairs of young folks now, will you? Students find student-nesses Cherubino works better than Rochild. 584,000 francs, repeated, ma mouselle Girondement, in a low tone. 584, one might as well say 600,000. As for Marius and Quazette, they were gazing at each other while this was going on. They hardly heeded this detail. Chapter 5 Deposit your money in a forest The reader has no doubt understood, without necessitating, a lengthy explanation that Jean Valjean, after the Chamin-2u affair, had been able, thanks to his first escape of a few days' duration, to come to Paris and to withdraw in season from the hands of Lafite, the sum earned by him under the name of Monsieur Madeline at Moutre-sur-Mer in the locality known as the Blaireu Bottom. The sum 630,000 francs, all in blank bills, was not very bulky and was contained in a box, only in order to preserve the box from dampness. He had placed it in a coffer filled with chestnut shavings. In the same coffer he had placed his other treasures, the bishop's candlesticks. It will be remembered that he had carried off the candlesticks of Jean Valjean later on every time that Jean Valjean needed money. He went to get it in the Blaireu Bottom, hence the absences which we have mentioned. He had a pickaxe somewhere in the heather in a hiding place known to himself alone. When he beheld Marius, convalescent, feeling that the hour was at hand, when that money might prove of service, he had gone to get it. It was he again, whom Boulachuel had seen in the woods. But on this occasion, Boulachuel inherited his pickaxe. The actual sum was 584,500 francs. Jean Valjean withdrew the 500 francs for himself. We shall see hereafter, he thought. The difference between that sum and the 630,000 francs withdrew from Lafite represented his expenditure in ten years, from 1823 to 1833. The five years of his stay in the convent had cost 1,000 francs. Jean Valjean set the two candlesticks on the chimney piece where they glittered to the great admiration of Poussin. Moreover, Jean Valjean knew that he was delivered from Javert. The story had been told in his presence and he had verified the fact in the monitor how a police inspector named Javert had been found grounded under a boat belonging to some laundreuses between the Pont de Change and the Pont Neuf and that of writing left by this man approachable and highly esteemed by his superiors pointed to a fit of mental aberration and a suicide. In fact, Jean Valjean since he left me at liberty once having got me in his power he must have been already mad. End of Chapter 4 and 5 Recording by Roseanne Schmidt Chapter 6 of Book 5 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 Cindy Royce Les Miserables Volume 5 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood Book 5 Grandfather and Grandson Chapter 6 The two old men do everything each one after his own fashion to render Cosette happy. Everything was made ready for the wedding. The doctor on being consulted declared that it might take place in February. It was then December. A few ravishing weeks of perfect happiness passed. The grandfather was not the least happy of them all. He remained for a quarter of an hour at a time gazing at Cosette. The wonderful beautiful girl, he exclaimed and she has so sweet and good and air.  Later on she'll have virtues with an odor of violets. How graceful! One cannot live otherwise than nobly with such a creature.  You are rich. Don't go to pedifogging, I beg of you. Cosette and Marius had passed abruptly from the sepulch to Paradise. The transition had not been softened and they would have been stunned had they not been dazzled by it. Do you understand anything about it? said Marius to Cosette. No, replied Cosette, but it seems to me that the good God is caring for us. Jean Valjean did everything, smoothed away every difficulty, arranged everything, made everything easy. He hastened towards Cosette's happiness with much adore and certainly with as much joy as Cosette herself. As he had been a mayor he understood how to solve that delicate problem with the secret of which he alone acquainted, Cosette's civil status. If he were to announce her origin bluntly it might prevent the marriage. Who knows? He extricated Cosette from all difficulties. He concocted for her a family of dead people, a sure means of not encountering any objections. Cosette was only Zion of an extinct family. Cosette was not his own daughter but the daughter of the other foshulins. Two brother foshulins had been gardeners to the Coven of Pettit Picbus. Inquiry was made at the Covenant, the very best information and the most respectable references abounded. The good nuns, not very apt and but little inclined to fathom questions of paternity and not attaching any importance to the matter, was the daughter of two foshulins. Cosette was the daughter. They said what was wanted and they said it was zeal. An act de notorette was drawn up. Cosette became in the eyes of the law Mme Moselle Euphraissie foshulint. She was declared an orphan, both father and mother being dead. Jean Verjean so arranged it that he was appointed under the name of foshulint as Cosette's guardian General Gilemon as supervising guardian over him. As for the 580,000 francs they constituted a legacy bequeathed to Cosette by a dead person who desired to remain unknown. The original legacy had consisted of 594,000 francs but 10,000 francs had been expended on the education of Mme Moselle Euphraissie 5,000 francs of that amount having been paid to the Covenant. This legacy, deposited in the hands of a third party was to be turned over to Cosette at her majority or at the date of her marriage. This taken as a whole was very acceptable and as the reader will perceive especially when the sum due was half a million. There was some peculiarities here and there it is true but they were not noticed. One of the interested parties had his eyes blindfolded by love by the 600,000 francs. Cosette learned that she was not the daughter of that old man whom she had so long called father. He was merely a kinsman. Another foschulent was her real father. At any other time this would have broken her heart but at the ineffable moment which she was then passing through it cast but a slight shadow a faint cloud.  She had Marius. The young man arrived the old man was effaced such is life. And then Cosette had for long years been habituated to seeing enigmas around her. Everyone being who has had mysterious childhood is always prepared for certain renunciations. Nevertheless she continued to call Jean Valjean father. Cosette happy as the angels was enthusiastic over father Gérémon. It is true that he overwhelmed her with gallant compliments and presents. While Jean Valjean was building up for Cosette a normal situation in society and an unassailable status Bonjour Gérémon was superintending the basket of wedding gifts. Nothing so amused him as being magnificent. He had given to Cosette a robe of bean chippur which had been descended to him up again he said ancient things all the rage and the young women of my old age dressed like the old women of my childhood. He rifled his respectable chests of drawers in Coromandel Lecour with swelling fronts which had not been open for years. Let us hear the confession of these dowagers he said let us see what they have in their punches. He noisily violated the pot-bellied lives of all of his mistresses and of all of his grandmothers pecans, demasques, lampas, painted mures, robes of chougre de tour indian kerchiefs embroidered in gold that could be washed dauphines without a right or wrong side in the piece genoa and alicorn point lace parour in antique goldsmiths work ivory bonbon boxes augmented with microscopic bottles gugaz and ribbons he lavished everything on casette casette amazed desperately in love with Marius and wild with gratitude towards mangeur-jeulement dreamed of happiness without limit clothed in satin and velvet her wedding basket seemed to her to be upheld by seraphine her soul flew out into the azure depths with wings of meccan lace the intoxication of the lovers was only equaled to what was already said by the ecstasy of the grandfather a short flourish of trumpets went in the rue de fuel de calve every morning a fresh offering of bric-a-brac from the grandfather to casette all possible knick-knacks glittered around her one day Marius who was fond of talking gravely in the midst of his bliss said a purpose of I know not what incident of the prestige of the ages like Cato and like Fossian and each one of them seems to me an antique memory moi antique exclaimed the old gentleman thanks Marius that is precisely the idea of which I was in search and on the following day a magnificent dress of tea rose colored more antique was added to casette's wedding presence from this ripperies the grandfather extracted a bit of wisdom and love is all very well but there must be something else to go with it the useless must be mingled with happiness happiness is only the necessary seasoned that enormously with the superfluous for me a place and her heart her heart and the louvre her heart and the grand waterworks of Versailles give me my shepherdness and try to make her a duchess fetch me phyllis crowned a thousand francs income open for me a bucolic perspective as far as you can see beneath a marble conoled I consent to the bucolic and also to the fairy spectacle of marble and gold dry happiness resembles dry bread one eats but one does not dine I want the superfluous the useless the extravagant excess that which serves no purpose I remember to have seen in the Cathedral of Strasbourg a clock as tall as three-story house which marked the hours which had the kindness to indicate the hour but which had not the air of being made for that and which after struck midday or midnight midday the hour of the sun or midnight the hour of love or any other hour which you like gave you the moon and the stars and the sea birds and fishes Phoebus and Phoebe and a host of things which emerged from a niche and the twelve apostles and the emperor Charles the fifth and the empanine and Sabines and a throng of the gilded Goodman who played on the trumpet to boot without reckoning delicious chimes which it sprinkled through the air on every occasion without anyone's knowing why the hour equal to that for my part I am of the opinion of the big clock of Strasbourg and I prefer it to the cuckoo clock from the black forest Major Gérémon talked nonsense in connection with the wedding and all the fripperies of the 18th century passed palmel through his dithyrams you are ignorant of the art of festivals you do not know how to organize a day of enjoyment in this age he exclaimed it ignores excess it ignores the riches it ignores the noble in everything it is clean shaven your thought estate is insipid colorless odorless and shapeless the dreams of your bourgeois who set up as they express it a pretty bourgeois freshly decorated violet ebony and calico make way, make way siar cumonogen is marrying mademoiselle clutchpenny no idea has been stuck to a candle there is the epic for you my demand is I may flee from it beyond the Samaritans ah, in 1787 I predict that all was lost from the day I beheld the du de rohan prince de leon du des chabous du des monstres basons marquis des zombies vicon des toisses pire France in tapoo that has borne its fruits in this century men attend to business they gamble on change they win money they are stingy people take care of their surfaces and varnish them everyone is dressed as though just out of a band box washed soaps scraped shaved combed waked smooth rubbed brushed cleaned on the outside irreproachable paint and at the same time death of my life in the depths of their consciousness they have dung, heaps and cesspools that are enough to make a cowherd who blows his nose in his fingers recoil I grant to this age the device dirty cleanliness don't be vexed, Marius give me permission to speak I say no evil of the people as you see I am always harping on your people a bit of slap to the bourgeois I belong to it he who loves well lashes well thereupon I say plainly that nowadays people marry but they no longer know how to marry it is true I regret the grace of the ancient manners I regret everything about them their elegance, their chivalry their courteous and delicate ways that joyous luxury which everyone possessed music forming part of the wedding a symphony above stairs a beating of drums below stairs the dances the joyous faces around the table the fine spun gallant compliments the songs the fireworks the frank laughter the devil's own row the huge knots of ribbon I regret the bride's garter the bride's garter is cousin to the girdle of Venus on what does the war of Troy turn Pablo why did they fight? why did Diemine the divine break over the head Marionus the great brazen helmet of ten points why did Achilles and Hector kill each other up with vast blows of their lances because Helen allowed Paris to take her garter with Gazette's garter Homer would construct the Iliad he would put in his poem a loquacious old fellow like me my friends in bygone days in those amiable days of yore people married wisely they had a good contract and then they had a good carouse as soon as Crujas takes his depart Comacho entered but ensued the stomach is an agreeable beast which demands its due and which wants to have its wedding also people souped well and had a table, a beautiful neighbor without a glimpse so that her throat was only moderately concealed oh the large laughing mouths and how gay we were in those days youth was a bouquet every man terminated in a branch of lilacs or a tuft of roses whether he was a shepherd or a warrior and if by chance one was a captain of dragoons one found means to call oneself Florian people thought much of looking well they embroidered and tinted themselves a bourgeois had the error of a flower a marquis had the error of a precious stone people had no straps to their boots they had no boots they were spruce shining, waved, lustrous, fluttering dainty, coquettish which did not at all prevent their wearing swords by their sides the hummingbird has beacon claws that was the day of galonde indies one of the sides of that center was delicate the other was magnificent and by the green cabbages people amused themselves today people are serious the bourgeois is a verus the bourgeois is a prude your century is unfortunate people would drive away the graces as being too low in the neck alas beauty is concealed as though it were ugliness since the revolution everything including the ballet dances has had its trousers a mountain bank dancer must be grave your rigadoons are doctrine it is necessary to be majestic people would be greatly annoyed if they did not carry their chins in their cravets the ideal of an urchin of twenty when he marries is to resemble Mejeu Royal Collaud and do you know what one arrives at with that majesty at being petty joy is not only joyous it is great but be in love gaily then what the doos marry when you marry with fever and giddiness and tumult and the uproar of happiness be grave in church well and good but as soon as the mass is finished you must make a dream whirl around the bride a marriage should be royal and chimerical to the pagoda of Chantalus I have had a horror of a paltry wedding ventrolele be it in Olympias for that one day at least be one of the gods ah people might be sylphs game and laughter and getterspides they are stupids my friends even recently married bridegrooms ought to be Prince Aldorandini profit by that unique minute in life to soar away the swans and the eagles even if you do have to fall back on the morrow into the bourgeoisie of the frogs don't economize on nuptials do not prune them of their splendors don't scrimp on the day when you beam the wedding is not the housekeeping oh if I were to carry out my fancy it would be gallant violins would be heard under the trees here is my program sky blue and silver I would mingle with the festival the rule of divinities I would convoke the draiads and the niriads the nuptials of amphitrite a rosy cloud nibs with well-dressed locks and entirely naked an Akkadian offering quatraints to the goddess a chariot drawn by marine monsters triton torté devant itiré du seconde un ravisson qui l'a haveté qui conque in English this means triton trotted on before and drew from his conch shell sound so ravishing that he delighted everyone there's a festive program there's a good one or else I know nothing of such matters just take it while the grandfather in full lyrical effusion was listening to himself cassette and marias grew intoxicated as they gazed freely at each other Aunt Gillimon surveyed all this with her impenetrable placidity within the last five or six months she had experienced a certain amount of emotions marias returned marias brought back bleeding marias brought back from a barricade marias dead then living marias reconciled marias wedding a poor girl marias wedding a millionaireess the 600 francs had been her last surprise then her indifference of a girl taking her first communion returned to her she went regularly to service told her beads read her ecology mumbled aves in one corner of the house while I love you was whispered in another and she beheld marias and cassette in a vague way the shadow was herself there is a certain state of inert aceticism in which the soul neutralized by depart a stranger to which may be designed as the business of living receives no impressions either human or pleasant or painful with the exception of earthquakes and catastrophes this devotion as father Gillimon said to his daughter corresponds to a cold in the head that smelled nothing of life neither any bad nor any good odor moreover the 600,000 francs had settled the elderly's spinsters in decision her father had acquired the habit of taking her so little into account that he had not consulted her in the matter of consent to marias's marriage he had acted impetuously according to his want having a despot turned slave but a single thought to satisfy marias had not even occurred to him that the aunt existed and that she could have an opinion of her own and sheep as she was this had vexed her somewhat resentful in her inmost soul but impassibly externally she had said to herself my father has settled the question of the marriage without reference to me I shall settle the question of inheritance without consulting him she was rich in fact and her father was not had the match been a poor one she would have left him poor so much the worse for my nephew he is wedding a beggar let him be a beggar himself but Cazette's half million pleased the aunt and altered her inward situation so far as this pair of lovers were concerned one owes some consideration to 600,000 francs and it was evident that she could not do otherwise then leave her fortune to these young people since they did not need it it was arranged that the couple should live with the grandfather Mejour Germain insisted on resigning to them his chamber the finest in the house that will make me young again he said it's an old plan of mine I have always entertained the idea of having a wedding in my chamber he furnished this chamber with a multitude of elegant trifles he had the ceiling and walls hung which he had by him in the piece and which he believed to have emanuated from Utrecht with a buttercup colored satin ground covered with velvet aryquil blossoms it was with that stuff said he that the bed of the duchestier anbule at La Roche Jean was triped on the chimney piece he set a little figurine in Sax Porcelain carrying a muff against her nude stomach Mejour Julien's library became the lawyer's study which Marius needed a study it will be remembered being required by the council of the order end of book five chapter six chapter seven of book five of Les Miserables volume five by Victor Hugo this is a LibriVox recording a LibriVox recordings are in the public domain if you have a question or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Les Miserables volume five by Victor Hugo translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood book five grandson and grandfather chapter seven the effects of dreams mingled with happiness the lovers saw each other every day Cossette came with Montchure this is reversing things said mademoiselle Guillemond to have the bride come to the house to do the courting like this but Marius's convalescence had caused the habit to become established and the armchairs of the Rude Fille du Kevler better adapted to interview than the straw shares of the Rude L'Homme Armée had rooted it Marius and Montchure Voschevalant saw each other but did not address each other it seems as though this had been agreed upon every girl needs a chaperone Cossette could not have Marius Voschevalant in Marius's eyes Marius Voschevalant was the condition attached to Cossette he accepted it by dint of discussing political matters vaguely and without precision from the point of view of the general amelioration of the fate of all men they came to say a little more than yes and no once on the subject of education which Marius wished to have free and obligatory multiplied under all forms lavished respirable for the entire population they were in unison and they almost conversed Marius Voschevalant talked well and even with the certain loftiness of language still he lacked something indescribable Marius Voschevalant possessed something less and also something more than a man of the world Marius inwardly and in the depths of his thought surrounded with all sorts of Voschevalant who was to him simply benevolent and cold there were moments when doubts as to his own recollections occurred to him there was a void in his memory a black spot an abyss excavated by four months of agony many thoughts had been lost therein he had come to the point of asking himself whether there were really a fact that he had seen Voschevalant the super in which the apparitions and the disappearances of the past had left his mind it must not be supposed that he was delivered from all those obsessions of the memory which force us even when happy even when satisfied to glance sadly behind us the head which does not turn backwards towards horizons that have vanished contains neither love nor thought at times Marius clasped his face between his hands and the vague and tumultuous past traversed the twilight which rained in his brain again he beheld my boof fall he heard Gavrosche singing amidst the grape-shot he felt beneath his lips the brow of cold epinine a gelat Kerfrac Jean Pervers Combebaphère Boussette Grand Cher all his friends rose a wreck before him then dispersed into thin air the tragic beings merely dreams had they actually exist the revolt had enveloped everything in its smoke these great fevers created great dreams he questioned himself he felt himself all these vanished realities made him dizzy where were they all then was it really true that they were all dead a fall into the shadows had carried all off except for him it all seemed to him to have disappeared as though behind a curtain of a theatre there are curtains like this which drop in life God passes on to the following act and he himself was he actually the same man he the poor man was rich he the abandoned had a family he the despairing was to Maricose it seemed to him that he had traversed a tomb and that he had entered into a black and had emerged from it white and in that tomb the others had remained all these beings of the past returned and present formed a circle around him and overshadowed him then he thought of Cossette and recovered his serenity but nothing less than this felicity could have sufficed to have faced that catastrophe Mishir Fosh Levant almost occupied a place among these vanished beings Maricose hesitated to believe that the Fosh Levant of the Barricade was the same as this Fosh Levant in flesh and blood probably one of those nightmares occasioned and brought back by the hours of his delirium however the natures of both men was rigid no question from Maricose to Fosh Levant was possible such an idea had not even occurred to him we have already indicated this characteristic detail two men who have a secret in common and who by a sort of tacit agreement exchange not a word on the subject are less rare than is commonly supposed once only did Maricose make an attempt he introduced into the conversation the Rude de la Chableurée and turning to Monshur Fosh Levant he said to him of course you are acquainted with that street what street the Rude de la Chableurée I have no idea of the name of that street replied Monshur Fosh Levant in the most natural manner in the world the response which bore upon the name of that street and not upon the street itself appeared to Marius to be more conclusive than it really was decidedly thought he I have been dreaming I have been subject to a hallucination it was someone who resembled him Monshur Fosh Levant was not there end of book 5 chapter 7 chapter 8 of book 5 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 Habergood book 5 chapter 8 two men impossible to find Marius's enchantment great as it was his mind other preoccupations while the wedding was in preparation and while awaiting the date fixed upon he caused difficult and scrupulous retrospective researches to be made he owed gratitude in various quarters he owed it on his father's account he owed it on his own there was Thernodere there was the unknown man who had brought him Marius back to Monshur Levant Marius endeavored to find these two men not intending to marry to be happy and to forget them and fearing that where their depths of gratitude not discharged they would leave a shadow in his life which promised so brightly for the future it was impossible for him to leave all these arrears of suffering behind him and he wished before entering joyously into the future to obtain acquittance from the past that Thernodere was a villain that did nothing from the fact that he had saved Colonel Palmersy Thernodere was a ruffian in the eyes of all the world except Marius and Marius ignorant of the real scene in the battlefield of Waterloo was not aware of the peculiar detail that his father so far as Thernodere was concerned was in the strange position of being indebted to the latter for his life without being indebted to him for any gratitude none of the various agents were discovering any trace of Thernodere obliteration appeared to be complete in that quarter Madame Thernodere had died in prison pending the trial Thernodere and his daughter Azalma the only two remaining of that lamentable group had plunged back into the gloom the gulf of the social unknown had silently closed above those beings on the surface there was not visible so much as that quiver, that trembling of circles which announced that something has fallen in and that the plummet may be dropped Madame Thernodere being dead Bullet trail being eliminated from the case close casos having disappeared the principal persons accused having escaped from prison the trial connected with the ambush in the Gorbo house had come to nothing that affair had remained rather obscure the bench of Assisus had been obliged to content themselves with two subordinates Panchard, Elias Prantenaire Elias Burgunale and Demilair, Elias Dumilars who had been inconsistently condemned after hearing of both sides of the case to ten years in the galleys hard labor for life had been the sentence pronounced against the escaped and contumatious accomplices Thernodere the head and leader had been through contumacy likewise condemned to death the sentence was the only information remaining about Thernodere casting upon that buried name its sinister light like a candle beside a beer moreover by thrusting Thernodere back into the very remotest steps through a fear of being recaptured this sentence added to the density of the shadows which enveloped this man as for the other person as for the unknown man who had saved Marius they were at first to some extent successful and then came to an abrupt conclusion they succeeded in finding the carriage which had brought Marius to the Rue de Filet de Calvaires in the evening of the 6th of June the coachman declared that on the 6th of June in obedience to the commands of a police agent he had stood from three o'clock in the afternoon until nightfall in the cave de Champs-Elysee above the outlet of the grand sewer that toward nine o'clock in the evening the river which abuts on the bank of the river had opened that a man had emerged therefrom burying on his shoulders another man who seemed to be dead that the agent who was on the watch at that point had arrested the living man and had seized the dead man that at the order of the police agent he, the coachman had taken all those folks into his carriage that they had first driven to the Rue de Filet de Calvaires that they had there deposited the dead man that the dead man was Monsieur Marius and that he, the coachman recognized him perfectly although he was alive this time that afterwards they had entered the vehicle again that he had whipped up his horses a few paces from the gates of the archives they had called him to halt that there in the street they had paid him and left him and that the police agent had led the other man away in the dark Marius, as we have said recalled nothing he only remembered that he had been seized from behind by an energetic hand at the moment when he was falling backwards into the barricade then everything vanished so far as he was concerned he had only regained consciousness at Monsieur Gilmour Mons he was lost in conjectures he could not doubt his own identity after having fallen in the rude de Chauvière he had been picked up by the police agent on the banks of the scene near the Pente Invalides someone had carried him from the Quart de Hall to the Champs-Elyse and Hal, through the sewer unheard of devotion someone, who? this was the man for whom Marius was searching of this man who was his saviour nothing, not a trace not the faintest indication Marius, although forced to preserve great reserve in that direction pushed his inquiries as far as the Perfecture of Police there, no more than elsewhere did the information obtain to lead to any enlightenment the Perfecture knew less about the matter than did the Hackney Coachman they had no knowledge of any arrest having been made on the 6th of June at the mouth of the Grand Sewer no report of any agent had been received there upon this matter as a fable the invention of this fable was attributed to the Coachman a Coachman who wants a gratuity is capable of anything even of imagination the fact was assured nevertheless Marius could not doubt it unless he doubted his own identity as we have just said everything about the singular enigma was inexplicable what had become of that man that mysterious man whom the Coachman had seen emerge bearing upon his back the unconscious Marius and whom the police agent on the watch had arrested in the very act of rescuing an insurgent what had become of the agent himself why had this agent preserved silence had the man succeeded in making his escape had he bribed the agent why did this man give no sign of life to Marius who owed everything to him his disinterestedness was no less tremendous he had not that man appeared again perhaps he was above compensation but no one is above gratitude was he dead who was the man what sort of a face had he no one could tell him this the Coachman answered the night was very dark Bask and Nicolette all in a flutter had looked only at their young master all covered with blood the porter whose candle had lighted the tragic arrival of Marius the fortune that he gave that man was terrible Marius had the blood-stained clothing which he had worn when he had been brought back to his grandfather preserved in the hope that it would prove of service in his researches on examining the code it was found that one skirt had been torn in a singular way a piece was missing one evening Marius was speaking in the presence of Cosette in a singular adventure of the innumerable inquiries which he had made and of the fruitlessness of his efforts the cold countenance of M. F. Chauvin angered him he exclaimed with a vivacity which had something of wrath in it yes that man whoever he may have been was sublime do you know what he did sir he intervened like an archangel he must have flung himself into it and have carried me through it he must have traversed more than a leg and a half in those frightful subterranean galleries bent over weighed down in the dark in the cesspool more than a leg and a half sir with a corpse upon his back and with what object with the sole object of saving the corpse and that corpse I was he said to himself I will risk my own existence for that miserable spark and his existence he risked not only once but twenty times every step there was danger the proof of it is that on emerging from the sewer he was arrested do you know sir that that man did all this and he had no recompense to expect what was I an insurgent what was I one of the conquered men they are yours interrupted Jean Valjean well resume Marius I would give them all to find that man once more Jean Valjean remained silent and of chapter eight book five reading by Joyce Martin chapter one of book six of name is grapple volume five by Victor Hugo this is a Libervox recording books are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libervox.org recording by Amy Hanks name is grapple volume five by Victor Hugo translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood book six the sleepless night chapter one the 16th of February 1833 the night at the 16th is the 17th of February 1833 was a blessed night of Marius and Cosette the day had been adorable it had not been the grand festival dreamed by the grandfather a very spectacle with a confusion of cherubim and cupids over the heads of the bridal pair a marriage where they deformed the subject of a painting to be placed over a door but it had been sweet and smiling the manner of marriage in 1833 was not the same as it is today France had not yet a wife of fleeing on coming out of a church of hiding oneself with shame from one's happiness and of combining the ways of the bankrupt with the delights of the song of songs people had not yet grasped to the full the chastity exquisiteness and decency of jolting their paradise in a posting chaise of breaking up their mystery with click-clacks of taking for a nuptial bed the most sacred of the souvenirs of life mingled pel-melle with the tete-a-tete of the conductor of the diligence and the maid-servant of the inn in the second half of the 19th century in which we are now living the mayor and his scarf the priest and his chasable the law and god no longer suffice they must be eked out by the postillon de l'angement a blue waistcoat turned up with red and with bell-buttons a plaque like a vamp brace green leather odes to the Norman horses with their tails knotted up false galoons furnished hat long powdered locks an enormous whip and tall boots France does not yet carry elegance to the length of doing like the English nobility and raining down on the post chaise of the bridal pair a hailstorm of slippers trodden down at heel and of worn out shoes which brought him good luck old shoes and slippers do not as yet form a part of our nubsheel celebrations but patience as good taste continues to spread we shall come to that in 1833 a hundred years ago marriage was not conducted at a full trot strange to say at that epoch people still imagined that a wedding was a private and a social festival that a patriarchal banquet would be the gaiety even in excess provided it be honest and decent does happiness no harm and that in short it is a good and a venerable thing that the fusion of these two destinies once a family is destined to spring should begin at home and that the household should thenceforth have its nubsheel chamber as its witness and people were so immodest as to marry in their own homes the marriage took place therefore at M. Gillenormand's house natural and commonplace as this matter of marrying is the bands to publish the papers to be drawn up the mayorality and the church produced some complication they could not get ready before the 16th of February now we note this detail for the pure satisfaction of being exact it chance that the 16th fell in Shrove Tuesday hesitations, scruples as a part of Anche-Gillenormand Shrove Tuesday exclaimed the grandfather so much the better there is a proverb marraige un mar du grade noira poign infany grade let us proceed here goes for the 16th do you want to delay Marius? no certainly not replied the lover let us marry then cried the grandfather accordingly the marriage took place on the 16th always in the sky a tiny scrap of blue at the service of happiness which lovers see even when the rest of creation is under an umbrella on the preceding evening Jean Vergen handed to Marius in the presence of M. Gillenormand the 584,000 francs as the marriage was taking place under the regime of community of property the papers had been simple henceforth was of no use to Jean Vergen as for Jean Vergen a beautiful chamber in the Gillenormand's house had been furnished expressly for him and Cosette had said to him in such an irresistible manner Father, I entreat you that she had almost persuaded him to promise that he would come and occupy it a few days before that fixed on for marriage an accident happened to Jean Vergen he crushed the thumb of his right hand this was not a serious matter he had not allowed anyone nor to address it nor even to see his hurt not even Cosette nevertheless this had forced him to sway this hand in a linen bandage and to carry his arm in a sling and had prevented his signing M. Gillenormand in his capacity of Cosette's supervising guardian had supplied his place we will not conduct the reader either to the mayor's office or to the church one does not follow a pair of lovers to that extent and one is accustomed to turn one's back in its buttonhole we will confine ourselves to noting an incident which, though unnoticed by the wedding party marked the transit from the Rue des Fillets du Cavers to the church of St. Paul at that epoch the northern extremity of the Rue Saint-Louis was in process of repaving it was barred off beginning with the Rue des Parins Royales it was impossible for the wedding carriages to go directly to St. Paul they were obliged to alter their course and the first way was to turn through the boulevard one of the invited guests observed that it was sure of Tuesday and that there would be a jam of vehicles why? asked M. Gillenormand because of the maskers capital said the grandfather let us go that way these young folks are on the way to be married they are about to enter the serious part of life this will prepare them for seeing a bit of the masquerade they went by way of the boulevard the first wedding coach held Cosette and Angela Normand M. Gillenormand and Jean Valjean Marius, still separated from his betrothed according to usage did not come until the second the nuptial train on emerging from the Rue des Fillets du Carvers became entangled in a long procession of vehicles which formed an endless chain from the Madeline to the Bastille and from the Bastille to the Madeline maskers abounded on the boulevard in spite of the fact that it was raining at intervals Mary Andrew, Pantelune, and Clown persisted in the good humor of that winter of 1833 Paris had disguised itself as Venice such Shrove Tuesdays are no longer to be seen nowadays everything which exists being a scattered carnival there is no longer any carnival the sidewalks were overflowing with pedestrians and the windows with curious spectators the terraces which crown the peristals of the theatres were bordered with spectators besides the maskers they stared at that procession peculiar to Shrove Tuesday as to Longchamps a vehicles of every description citadines, tapestia, carioles, cabriolets marching in order rigorously riveted to each other by the police regulations and locked into rails as it were anyone in these vehicles as it once a spectator and a spectacle police sergeants maintained on the sides of the boulevard these two interminable parallel files moving in contrarier directions and saw to it that nothing interfered with that double current those two brooks of carriages flowing the one downstream the other upstream the one toward the chaussée d'antin the other toward the faubourg son entouane the carriages of the peers of France and the ambassadors emblazoned with coats of arms held the middle of the way going and coming freely notably that of Bufgras had the same privilege in this gaiety of Paris England cracked her whip Lord Seymour's post-chase harassed by a nickname from the populace passed with great noise in the double file along which the municipal guards galloped like sheepdogs honest family coaches loaded down with great aunts and grandmothers displayed at their doors fresh groups of children in disguise clowns of seven years of age and a group of local creatures who felt that they formed an official part of the public mirth who were imbued with the dignity of the Harlequinade and who possessed the gravity of functionaries from time to time a hitch arose somewhere in the procession of vehicles one or other of the two lateral files halted until the knot was disentangled one carriage delayed suffice to paralyze the whole line then they set out again on the march the wedding carriages were in the file moving toward the Bastille and scurrying the right side of the boulevard at the top of the Poisson there was a stoppage nearly at the same moment the other file which was proceeding toward the Madeleine halted also at that point of the file there was a carriage load of massacres these carriages or to speak more correctly these wagon loads of massacres are very familiar to Parisians if they were missing on a show of Tuesday or at the Midlent it would be taken in bad part there's something behind that probably the ministry is about to undergo a change a pile of Cassandres, Harlequins, and Columbines jolte along high above the passersby all possible grotesqueness from the turk to the savage Hercules supporting marquise fish wives who would have made Rabelais stop up his ears just as the Maynids made Aristophanes drop his eyes toe wigs, pink tights, dandified hats spectacles of a grimacer three cornered hats of genoux tormented with a butterfly shouts directed at pedestrians fists on hips bold attitudes bare shoulders immodesty unchained a chaos of shamelessness driven by a coachman crowned with flowers this is what that institution was like Greece stood in need of a chariot of this piece France stands in need of the hackney coach of egg everything can be parodied even parody the ceternalia that grimace of antique beauty ends through exaggeration after exaggeration in Shrove Tuesday and the Bacchanal formally crowned with sprays of vine leaves and grapes inundated with sunshine displaying her marble breast in the divine semi-nudity having at the present day lost her shape under the soaked rags of the north has finally come to be called the jack pudding the tradition of carriage loads of the most ancient days of the monarchy the accounts of Louis XI allot to the bailiff of the palace twenty-sew turnah for three coaches of masquerades in the crossroads in our day these noisy heaps of creatures are accustomed to have themselves driven in some ancient cuckoo carriage whose imperial they load down or they overwhelm hired Landao with its top thrown back with their tumultuous groups twenty of them riding a carriage intended for six crates to the rumble on the cheeks of the hood on the shafts they even bestride the carriage lamps they stand, sit, lie with their knees drawn up in a knot and their legs hanging the women sit on the men's laps far away above the throng of heads their wild pyramid is visible these carriage loads form mountains of mirth in the midst of a route Kalei, Panard and Perron flew from it and enriched with slaying this carriage through its freight has an air of conquest uproar rains in front tumult behind people vociferate, shout, howl there they break forth and writhe with enjoyment gaity roars sarcasm flames forth joe viality is flaunted like a red flag two jades there drag farce blossomed forth in an apotheosis it is the triumphal car of laughter laughter that is too cynical to be frank in truth this laughter is suspicious this laughter has a mission it is charged with proving the carnival to the Parisians these fish-wife vehicles in which one feels one knows not what shadows set the philosopher to thinking there is government therein there one lays one's finger on a mysterious affinity between public men and public women it certainly is sad that turpitude heaped up should give a sum total of gaity no probrium that people should be enticed that the system of spying and serving as cariotids to prostitution should amuse the rabble when it confronts them that the crowd loves to behold that monstrous living pile of tinsel rags half dung half light roll a pie on four wheels howling and laughing that they should clap their hands at this glory composed of all shames that there would be no festival for the populace that would be united hydras of joy but what can be done about it these berebanned and be flowered tumbles of mire are insulted and pardoned by the laughter of the public the laughter of all is the accomplice of universal degradation certain unhealthy festivals disaggregate the people and convert them into the populace and populaces like tyrants require buffoons the king has rocalo the populace has the mary andrew on every occasion that it is a great sublime city there the carnival forms part of politics Paris, let us confess it willingly allows infamy to furnish it with comedy she only demands of her masters when she has masters one thing paint me the mud Rome was of the same mind she loved Nero Nero was a titanic laterman chance ordained as we have just said that one of the shapeless clusters of women dragged about on a vast collage should halt on the left of the boulevard while the wedding train halted on the right the carriage load of masks caught sight of the wedding carriage containing the bridal party opposite them on the other side of the boulevard hello said a masquer here's a wedding a sham wedding retorted another we are the genuine article and being too far off to accost the wedding party and fearing also the rebuke of the police the two masquer turned their eyes elsewhere at the end of another minute the carriage load of masters had their hands full the multitude set to yelling which is the crowd's caress to masquerades and the two masquerers who had just spoken had to face the throng with their comrades and did not find the entire repertory of projectiles of the fish markets too extensive to retort to the enormous verbal attacks of the populace a frightful exchange of metaphors took place between the masquer and the crowd in the meanwhile there was a strange a spanured with an enormous nose an elderly air and a huge black mustache and a gaunt fish wife who was quite a young girl masked with a loo had also noticed the wedding and while their companions and the passersby were exchanging insults they had held a dialogue in a low voice there aside was covered by the tumult and was lost in it the gusts of rain had drenched the front of the vehicle as the fish wife clad in a low-necked gown replied to the spanured she shivered, laughed and coughed here is their dialogue say now what daddy do you see that old cove what old cove yonder in the first wedding card on our side the one with his arm hung up in a black cravat yes well I'm sure that I know him ah I'm feeling that they should cut my throat and I'm ready to swear that I never have said either you, thou, or I in my life if I don't know that perisium Paris and Pentine today can you see the bride if you stoop down no and the bridegroom there's no bridegroom in that trap bah unless it's the old fellow try to get a sight of the bride by stooping very low I can't never mind that old cove who has something to matter with his paw I know and what good does it do to know him no one can tell sometimes it does I don't care a hang for old fellows that I don't I know him know him if you want to how the devil does he come to be one of the wedding party we're in it too where does that wedding come from how should I know listen well what there's one thing you ought to do is grab and spin that wedding what for to find out where it goes and what it is hurry up and jump down trot my girl your legs are young I can't quit the vehicle why not I'm hired ah the devil I owe my fish wife day to the prefecture that's true if I leave the cart the first inspector who gets his eye on me will arrest me you know that well enough yes I do he bothers me do the old fellows bother you but you're not a young girl he's in the first carriage well in the brides trap what then so he's the father what concern is that of mine I tell you that he's the father as if he were the only father listen what I can't get out otherwise than masked here I'm concealed no one knows that I'm here but tomorrow there will be no more maskers I must sneak back to my hole but you are free not particularly more than I am at any rate well what of that you must try to find out where that wedding party went to where it went yes I know where's it going then to the Couturent Bleu and the first place it's not in that direction well to La Rapée or elsewhere it's free wedding parties are at liberty where that wedding is who that old cove belongs to and where that wedding pair lives I like that that would be queer it's so easy to find out a wedding party that passed through the street on a Shrove Tuesday a week afterwards a pin in a haimo it ain't possible that don't matter you must try you understand me Azelma the two files resumed their movement on both sides of the boulevard this concludes book 6 chapter 1 of Les Miserables recording by Amy Hinkst