Towards the middle of the night Jean Valjean woke.

     Jean Valjean came from a poor peasant family of Brie.He had not learned to read in his childhood.When he reached man's estate, be became a tree-pruner at Faverolles.His mother was named Jeanne Mathieu; his father was called Jean Valjean or Vlajean, probably a sobriquet, and a contraction of viola Jean, "here's Jean."

     Jean Valjean was of that thoughtful but not gloomy disposition which constitutes the peculiarity of affectionate natures. On the whole, however, there was something decidedly sluggish and insignificant about Jean Valjean in appearance, at least. He had lost his father and mother at a very early age.His mother had died of a milk fever, which had not been properly attended to. His father, a tree-pruner, like himself, had been killed by a fall from a tree.All that remained to Jean Valjean was a sister older than himself,--a widow with seven children, boys and girls. This sister had brought up Jean Valjean, and so long as she had a husband she lodged and fed her young brother.

     The husband died.The eldest of the seven children was eight years old.The youngest, one.

     Jean Valjean had just attained his twenty-fifth year.He took the father's place, and, in his turn, supported the sister who had brought him up.This was done simply as a duty and even a little churlishly on the part of Jean Valjean.Thus his youth had been spent in rude and ill-paid toil.He had never known a "kind woman friend" in his native parts.He had not had the time to fall in love.

     He returned at night weary, and ate his broth without uttering a word. His sister, mother Jeanne, often took the best part of his repast from his bowl while he was eating,--a bit of meat, a slice of bacon, the heart of the cabbage,--to give to one of her children. As he went on eating, with his head bent over the table and almost into his soup, his long hair falling about his bowl and concealing his eyes, he had the air of perceiving nothing and allowing it. There was at Faverolles, not far from the Valjean thatched cottage, on the other side of the lane, a farmer's wife named Marie-Claude; the Valjean children, habitually famished, sometimes went to borrow from Marie-Claude a pint of milk, in their mother's name, which they drank behind a hedge or in some alley corner, snatching the jug from each other so hastily that the little girls spilled it on their aprons and down their necks.If their mother had known of this marauding, she would have punished the delinquents severely. Jean Valjean gruffly and grumblingly paid Marie-Claude for the pint of milk behind their mother's back, and the children were not punished.

     In pruning season he earned eighteen sous a day; then he hired out as a hay-maker, as laborer, as neat-herd on a farm, as a drudge. He did whatever he could.His sister worked also but what could she do with seven little children?It was a sad group enveloped in misery, which was being gradually annihilated.A very hard winter came. Jean had no work.The family had no bread.No bread literally. Seven children!

     One Sunday evening, Maubert Isabeau, the baker on the Church Square at Faverolles, was preparing to go to bed, when he heard a violent blow on the grated front of his shop.He arrived in time to see an arm passed through a hole made by a blow from a fist, through the grating and the glass.The arm seized a loaf of bread and carried it off.Isabeau ran out in haste; the robber fled at the full speed of his legs.Isabeau ran after him and stopped him. The thief had flung away the loaf, but his arm was still bleeding. It was Jean Valjean.

     This took place in 1795.Jean Valjean was taken before the tribunals of the time for theft and breaking and entering an inhabited house at night.He had a gun which he used better than any one else in the world, he was a bit of a poacher, and this injured his case.There exists a legitimate prejudice against poachers. The poacher, like the smuggler, smacks too strongly of the brigand. Nevertheless, we will remark cursorily, there is still an abyss between these races of men and the hideous assassin of the towns. The poacher lives in the forest, the smuggler lives in the mountains or on the sea.The cities make ferocious men because they make corrupt men.The mountain, the sea, the forest, make savage men; they develop the fierce side, but often without destroying the humane side.

     Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty.The terms of the Code were explicit.There occur formidable hours in our civilization; there are moments when the penal laws decree a shipwreck. What an ominous minute is that in which society draws back and consummates the irreparable abandonment of a sentient being! Jean Valjean was condemned to five years in the galleys.

     On the 22d of April, 1796, the victory of Montenotte, won by the general-in-chief of the army of Italy, whom the message of the Directory to the Five Hundred, of the 2d of Floreal, year IV., calls Buona-parte, was announced in paris; on that same day a great gang of galley-slaves was put in chains at Bicetre.Jean Valjean formed a part of that gang.An old turnkey of the prison, who is now nearly eighty years old, still recalls perfectly that unfortunate wretch who was chained to the end of the fourth line, in the north angle of the courtyard.He was seated on the ground like the others. He did not seem to comprehend his position, except that it was horrible. It is probable that he, also, was disentangling from amid the vague ideas of a poor man, ignorant of everything, something excessive. While the bolt of his iron collar was being riveted behind his head with heavy blows from the hammer, he wept, his tears stifled him, they impeded his speech; he only managed to say from time to time, "I was a tree-pruner at Faverolles."Then still sobbing, he raised his right hand and lowered it gradually seven times, as though he were touching in succession seven heads of unequal heights, and from this gesture it was divined that the thing which he had done, whatever it was, he had done for the sake of clothing and nourishing seven little children.

     He set out for Toulon.He arrived there, after a journey of twenty-seven days, on a cart, with a chain on his neck.At Toulon he was clothed in the red cassock.All that had constituted his life, even to his name, was effaced; he was no longer even Jean Valjean; he was number 24,601. What became of his sister? What became of the seven children?Who troubled himself about that? What becomes of the handful of leaves from the young tree which is sawed off at the root?

     It is always the same story.These poor living beings, these creatures of God, henceforth without support, without guide, without refuge, wandered away at random,--who even knows?-- each in his own direction perhaps, and little by little buried themselves in that cold mist which engulfs solitary destinies; gloomy shades, into which disappear in succession so many unlucky heads, in the sombre march of the human race.They quitted the country. The clock-tower of what had been their village forgot them; the boundary line of what had been their field forgot them; after a few years' residence in the galleys, Jean Valjean himself forgot them. In that heart, where there had been a wound, there was a scar. That is all.

     Only once, during all the time which he spent at Toulon, did he hear his sister mentioned.This happened, I think, towards the end of the fourth year of his captivity.I know not through what channels the news reached him.Some one who had known them in their own country had seen his sister.She was in paris. She lived in a poor street Rear Saint-Sulpice, in the Rue du Gindre. She had with her only one child, a little boy, the youngest. Where were the other six?perhaps she did not know herself. Every morning she went to a printing office, No. 3 Rue du Sabot, where she was a folder and stitcher.She was obliged to be there at six o'clock in the morning--long before daylight in winter. In the same building with the printing office there was a school, and to this school she took her little boy, who was seven years old. But as she entered the printing office at six, and the school only opened at seven, the child had to wait in the courtyard, for the school to open, for an hour--one hour of a winter night in the open air! They would not allow the child to come into the printing office, because he was in the way, they said.When the workmen passed in the morning, they beheld this poor little being seated on the pavement, overcome with drowsiness, and often fast asleep in the shadow, crouched down and doubled up over his basket.When it rained, an old woman, the portress, took pity on him; she took him into her den, where there was a pallet, a spinning-wheel, and two wooden chairs, and the little one slumbered in a corner, pressing himself close to the cat that he might suffer less from cold.At seven o'clock the school opened, and he entered.That is what was told to Jean Valjean.

     They talked to him about it for one day; it was a moment, a flash, as though a window had suddenly been opened upon the destiny of those things whom he had loved; then all closed again.He heard nothing more forever.Nothing from them ever reached him again; he never beheld them; he never met them again; and in the continuation of this mournful history they will not be met with any more.

     Towards the end of this fourth year Jean Valjean's turn to escape arrived.His comrades assisted him, as is the custom in that sad place. He escaped.He wandered for two days in the fields at liberty, if being at liberty is to be hunted, to turn the head every instant, to quake at the slightest noise, to be afraid of everything,--of a smoking roof, of a passing man, of a barking dog, of a galloping horse, of a striking clock, of the day because one can see, of the night because one cannot see, of the highway, of the path, of a bush, of sleep.On the evening of the second day he was captured. He had neither eaten nor slept for thirty-six hours.The maritime tribunal condemned him, for this crime, to a prolongation of his term for three years, which made eight years.In the sixth year his turn to escape occurred again; he availed himself of it, but could not accomplish his flight fully.He was missing at roll-call. The cannon were fired, and at night the patrol found him hidden under the keel of a vessel in process of construction; he resisted the galley guards who seized him.Escape and rebellion. This case, provided for by a special code, was punished by an addition of five years, two of them in the double chain.Thirteen years. In the tenth year his turn came round again; he again profited by it; he succeeded no better.Three years for this fresh attempt. Sixteen years.Finally, I think it was during his thirteenth year, he made a last attempt, and only succeeded in getting retaken at the end of four hours of absence.Three years for those four hours. Nineteen years.In October, 1815, he was released; he had entered there in 1796, for having broken a pane of glass and taken a loaf of bread.

     Room for a brief parenthesis.This is the second time, during his studies on the penal question and damnation by law, that the author of this book has come across the theft of a loaf of bread as the point of departure for the disaster of a destiny. Claude Gaux had stolen a loaf; Jean Valjean had stolen a loaf. English statistics prove the fact that four thefts out of five in London have hunger for their immediate cause.

     Jean Valjean had entered the galleys sobbing and shuddering; he emerged impassive.He had entered in despair; he emerged gloomy.
     What had taken place in that soul?

     半夜，冉阿让醒来了。冉阿让生在布里的一个贫农家里。他幼年不识字，成人以后，在法维洛勒做修树枝的工人。他的母亲叫让马第，他的父亲叫冉阿让，或让来，让来大致是浑名，也是“阿让来了”的简音。

     冉阿让生来就好用心思，但并不沉郁，那是情感丰富的人的特性。但是他多少有些昏昏沉沉、松松垮垮的样子，至少表面如此。他在很小时就父母双亡。他的母亲是因为害乳炎，又诊治不当而死的。他的父亲和他一样，也是个修树枝的工人，是从树上摔下来死的。冉阿让只剩一 个姐姐，姐姐孀居，有七个子女。把冉阿让抚养成人的就是这个姐姐。

     丈夫在世时，她一直负担着她小弟弟的生活。丈夫死了。七个孩子中最大的一个只有八岁，最小的一岁。冉阿让刚到二十五岁，他代行父职，帮助姐姐，报答她当年的抚养之恩。那是很自然的事，正如一种天职一 样，冉阿让甚至做得有些过头。他的青年时期便是那样干报酬微薄的辛苦工作而消磨掉的。他家乡的人从未听说他有过“女朋友”。他没有时间去考虑爱情问题。

     天黑回家，他精疲力尽，一言不发，吃他的菜汤。他吃时，他姐姐让妈妈，时常从他的汤瓢里把他食物中最好的一些东西，一块瘦肉，一 片肥肉，白菜的心，选给她的一个孩子吃。他呢，俯在桌上，头几乎浸在汤里，头发垂在瓢边，掩着他的眼睛，只管吃，仿佛全没看见，让人家眩在法维洛勒的那条小街上，阿让茅屋的斜对面，住着一个农家妇女，叫玛丽—克洛德，阿让家的孩子们，挨饿是家常便饭，他们有时假冒他们母亲的名义，到玛丽—克洛德里那里去借一勺牛奶，躲在篱笆后面或路角上喝起来，大家把那奶罐抢来夺去，使那些小女孩子紧张得泼在身上、颈子上都是奶。母亲如果知道了这种欺诈行为，总会严厉惩罚这些小骗子们的。冉阿让气冲冲的，嘴里唠叨个不停，瞒着孩子们的母亲把牛奶钱照付给玛丽—克洛德，他们才没有挨揍。

     在修树枝的季节里，他每天可以赚十八个苏，然后他就给人家当割麦零工、小工、牧牛人、苦工。他做他能做的事。他的姐姐也作工，但是拖着七个孩子怎么办呢？那是一群苦恼的人，穷苦把他们逐渐围困起来了。有一年冬季，冉阿让找不到工作。家里没有面包。绝对没有一点面包，但却有七个孩子。

     一个星期日的晚上，住在法维洛勒的天主堂广场上的面包店老板穆伯?易查博，正准备去睡时，忽听见有人在他铺子的那个装了铁丝网的玻璃窗上使劲打了一下。他赶来正好看见一只手，从铁丝网和玻璃上被拳头打破的一个洞里伸进来，把一块面包抓走了。易查博赶忙追出来，那小偷也拚命跑，易查博跟在他后面追，捉住了他。他丢了面包，胳膊却还流着血。那正是冉阿让。

     那是一七九五年的事。冉阿让被指控为“黑夜破坏有人住着的房屋入内行窃”，送到当时的法院。他原有一枝熗，他的熗法比世上任何熗手都好，有时他还喜欢私自打猎，那对他是很不利的。大家对私自打猎的人早有一种合法的成见。私自打猎的人正如走私的人，都跟土匪差得不远。但是，我们附带说一句，那种人和城市中那些卑鄙无耻的杀人犯比较起来，总还是有天壤之别的。私自打猎的人住在森林里，走私的人住在山中或海上。城市会使人变得凶残，因为它使人堕落腐化。山、海和森林使人变得粗野。它们只发展这种野性，却不泯灭人性。

     冉阿让被判罪。法律的条文是死板的。在我们的文明里，有许多令人寒心的时刻，那就是刑法令人陷入绝境的时刻。一个有思想的生物被逐出社会，遭到了无可挽救的遗弃，那是何等悲惨的日子！冉阿让被宣判服五年苦役。

     一七九六年四月二十二日，巴黎正欢呼意大利前线①总指挥（共和四 年花月二日执政内阁致五百人院咨文中称作 Buona Parte②的那位总指挥）在芒泰诺泰③所获的胜利。这同一天，在比赛特监狱中却扣上了一长串铁链。冉阿让便是锁在那铁链上的一个。
①当时欧洲联盟国的军队从意大利和莱茵河两方面进攻法国，拿破仑从意大利出击，在意大利境内击溃奥地利军队以后，直逼维也纳，用一年时间，迫使奥地利求和。
②拿破仑出生于科西嘉岛，该岛原属意大利，一七六八年卖与法国。他的姓，Bonaparte（波拿巴），按原来意大利文写法是 Buonaparte。此处所言咨文，是将一字写成两字，盖当时其名未显，以致发生这一错误。
③芒泰诺泰（Montenotte），意大利北部离法国国境不远的一个村镇。

     当时的一个狱卒，现在已年近九十了，还记得非常清楚，那天，那个可怜人呆在院子的北角上，被锁在第四条链子的末尾。他和其它犯人一样，坐在地上。他除了知道他所处的地位可怕以外好象还完全不明所以。或许在他那种知识全无的穷人的混沌观念中，他多少也还觉得在这件事里他有些过火的地方。当别人在他脑后用大锤钉着他枷上的大头钉时，他不由得痛哭起来。眼泪使他气塞，呜咽不能成声。他只能断断续续地说：“我是法维洛勒修树枝的工人。”过后，他边痛哭，边伸起他的右手，缓缓地按下去，这样一 共做了七次，好象他依次抚摩了七个高矮不一的头顶。我们从他这动作上可以猜测到，他所做的任何事都全是为了那七个孩子的衣食。

     他出发到土伦去。他乘着小车，颈上悬着铁链，经过二十七天的路程到了那地方。在土伦，他穿上红色囚衣。他生命中的一切全被消灭了，连他的名字也被消灭了。他已不再是冉阿让，而是二四六○一号。姐姐怎样了呢？七个孩子怎样了呢？谁会照顾他们呢？一棵年轻的树被人齐根锯了，它的那一撮嫩叶又怎样了呢？

     那是千篇一律的经过，那些可怜的活生生的人，上帝的创造物，从此无所依靠，无人指导，无处栖身，只得随着命运东飘西荡，谁还能知道呵？或者是人各一方，渐渐陷入苦命人的那种丧身亡命的凄凉的迷雾中，一经进入人类的悲惨行列，他们便和那些不幸的囚徒一样，一个接着一个地消失了。他们背井离乡。他们乡村里的钟塔忘了他们，他们田地边的界石也忘了他们，冉阿让在监牢里住了几年之后，自己也把那些东西忘了。在他的心上，从前有过一道伤口，后来只剩下一条伤痕，如是而已。

     关于他姐姐的消息，他在土伦自始至终只听见人家略略提到过一次，那似乎是在他坐监的第四年末。我已经想不起他是从什么地方得到了那消息的。有个和他们相识的同乡人看见过他姐姐，说她到了巴黎。她住在常德尔街，即圣稣尔比斯教堂附近的一条穷街。她只带着一个孩子，她最小的那个男孩。其余的六个到什么地方去了呢？也许连她自己也不知道。每天早晨，她到木鞋街三号，一个印刷厂里去，她在那里做装订女工。早晨六点她就得到厂，在冬季，那个时候离天亮还很早。

     在印刷厂里有个小学校，她每天领着那七岁的孩子到学校里去读书。只不过她六点到厂，学校要到七点才开门，那孩子只好在院子里等上一个钟头，等到学校开门。到了冬天，那一个钟头是在黑暗中的露天里等过的。他们不肯让那孩子进印刷厂的门，因为有人说他碍事。那些工人清早路过那里时，总看见那小人儿沉沉欲睡地坐在石子路上，并且常常是在一 个黑暗的角落里，他蹲在地上，伏在他的篮子上便睡着了。

     下雨时，那个看门的老婆子看了过意不去，便把他引到她那破屋子里去，那屋子里只有一张破床、一架纺车和两张木椅，小孩便睡在屋角里，紧紧抱着一 只猫，这样可以少挨一点冻。到七点，学校开门了，他便跑进去。以上便是冉阿让听到的话。人家那天把消息告诉了他，那只是极短暂的一刹那，好象一扇窗子忽然开了，让他看了一眼他心爱的亲人们的命运后，随即一切又都隔绝了。从此以后，他再也没有听见人家说到过他们，永远没有得到过关于他们的其他任何消息，永远没有和他们再见面，也永远没有遇见过他们，并且就是在这一段悲惨故事的后半段，我们也不会再见到他们了。

     到了第四年末，冉阿让有了越狱的机会。他的同伴帮助他逃走，这类事是同处困境中人常会发生的。他逃走了，在田野里自由地游荡了两天，如果自由这两个字的意义是这样的一些内容：受包围，时时向后看，听见一点声音便吃惊，害怕一切，害怕冒烟的屋顶、过路的行人、狗叫、马跑、钟鸣、看得见东西的白昼、看不见东西的黑夜、大路、小路、树丛、睡眠。在第二天晚上，他又被逮住了。三十六个小时以来他没有吃也没有睡。海港法庭对他这次罪过，判决延长拘禁期三年，一共是八年。

     到第六年他又有了越狱的机会，他要利用那机会，但是他也没能逃脱。点名时他不在。警炮响了，到了晚上，巡夜的人在一只正在建造的船骨里找到了他，他拒捕，但还是被捕了。越狱并且拒捕，那种被特别法典预见的享受了加禁五年的处罚。五年当中，要受两年的夹链。一共是十 三年。到第十年，他又有了越狱的机会，他又要趁机试一试，还是没有成功。那次的新尝试又被判了监禁三年。一共是十六年。到末了，我想是在第十三年内，他试了最后一次，所得的结果只是在四个钟头之后又被拘捕。那四个钟头换来了三年的监禁。一共是十九年。到一八一五年的十月里，他被释放了。

     他是在一七九六年关进去的，为了打破一块玻璃，拿了一个面包。此地不妨说一句题外的话。本书作者在他对刑法问题和法律裁判的研究里遇见的那种为了窃取一个面包而造成终身悲剧的案情，这是第二次。克洛德?格①偷了一个面包，冉阿让也偷了一个面包。英国的一个统计家说，在伦敦五件窃案里，四件是因为饥饿直接引起的。冉阿让走进牢狱时边痛哭，边颤栗，出狱时却无动于衷了；他进去时悲痛失望，出来时老气横秋。这个人的心曾有过何等样的波动呢？
① 洛德格（ClaudeGueux），雨果一八三四年所作的小说《克洛德?格》的主角。

     Let us try to say it.
     It is necessary that society should look at these things, because it is itself which creates them.

     He was, as we have said, an ignorant man, but he was not a fool. The light of nature was ignited in him.Unhappiness, which also possesses a clearness of vision of its own, augmented the small amount of daylight which existed in this mind.Beneath the cudgel, beneath the chain, in the cell, in hardship, beneath the burning sun of the galleys, upon the plank bed of the convict, he withdrew into his own consciousness and meditated.

     He constituted himself the tribunal.
     He began by putting himself on trial.

     He recognized the fact that he was not an innocent man unjustly punished. He admitted that he had committed an extreme and blameworthy act; that that loaf of bread would probably not have been refused to him had he asked for it; that, in any case, it would have been better to wait until he could get it through compassion or through work; that it is not an unanswerable argument to say, "Can one wait when one is hungry?"That, in the first place, it is very rare for any one to die of hunger, literally; and next, that, fortunately or unfortunately, man is so constituted that he can suffer long and much, both morally and physically, without dying; that it is therefore necessary to have patience; that that would even have been better for those poor little children; that it had been an act of madness for him, a miserable, unfortunate wretch, to take society at large violently by the collar, and to imagine that one can escape from misery through theft; that that is in any case a poor door through which to escape from misery through which infamy enters; in short, that he was in the wrong.

     Then he asked himself--

     Whether he had been the only one in fault in his fatal history. Whether it was not a serious thing, that he, a laborer, out of work, that he, an industrious man, should have lacked bread.And whether, the fault once committed and confessed, the chastisement had not been ferocious and disproportioned.Whether there had not been more abuse on the part of the law, in respect to the penalty, than there had been on the part of the culprit in respect to his fault.Whether there had not been an excess of weights in one balance of the scale, in the one which contains expiation.Whether the over-weight of the penalty was not equivalent to the annihilation of the crime, and did not result in reversing the situation, of replacing the fault of the delinquent by the fault of the repression, of converting the guilty man into the victim, and the debtor into the creditor, and of ranging the law definitely on the side of the man who had violated it.

     Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for attempts at escape, had not ended in becoming a sort of outrage perpetrated by the stronger upon the feebler, a crime of society against the individual, a crime which was being committed afresh every day, a crime which had lasted nineteen years.

     He asked himself whether human society could have the right to force its members to suffer equally in one case for its own unreasonable lack of foresight, and in the other case for its pitiless foresight; and to seize a poor man forever between a defect and an excess, a default of work and an excess of punishment.

     Whether it was not outrageous for society to treat thus precisely those of its members who were the least well endowed in the division of goods made by chance, and consequently the most deserving of consideration.
     These questions put and answered, he judged society and condemned it.
     He condemned it to his hatred.

     He made it responsible for the fate which he was suffering, and he said to himself that it might be that one day he should not hesitate to call it to account.He declared to himself that there was no equilibrium between the harm which he had caused and the harm which was being done to him; he finally arrived at the conclusion that his punishment was not, in truth, unjust, but that it most assuredly was iniquitous.

     Anger may be both foolish and absurd; one can be irritated wrongfully; one is exasperated only when there is some show of right on one's side at bottom.Jean Valjean felt himself exasperated.

     And besides, human society had done him nothing but harm; he had never seen anything of it save that angry face which it calls Justice, and which it shows to those whom it strikes.Men had only touched him to bruise him.Every contact with them had been a blow. Never, since his infancy, since the days of his mother, of his sister, had he ever encountered a friendly word and a kindly glance. From suffering to suffering, he had gradually arrived at the conviction that life is a war; and that in this war he was the conquered. He had no other weapon than his hate.He resolved to whet it in the galleys and to bear it away with him when he departed.

     There was at Toulon a school for the convicts, kept by the Ignorantin friars, where the most necessary branches were taught to those of the unfortunate men who had a mind for them.He was of the number who had a mind.He went to school at the age of forty, and learned to read, to write, to cipher.He felt that to fortify his intelligence was to fortify his hate.In certain cases, education and enlightenment can serve to eke out evil.

     This is a sad thing to say; after having judged society, which had caused his unhappiness, he judged providence, which had made society, and he condemned it also.
     Thus during nineteen years of torture and slavery, this soul mounted and at the same time fell.Light entered it on one side, and darkness on the other.

     Jean Valjean had not, as we have seen, an evil nature.He was still good when he arrived at the galleys.He there condemned society, and felt that he was becoming wicked; he there condemned providence, and was conscious that he was becoming impious.
     It is difficult not to indulge in meditation at this point.

     Does human nature thus change utterly and from top to bottom? Can the man created good by God be rendered wicked by man? Can the soul be completely made over by fate, and become evil, fate being evil?Can the heart become misshapen and contract incurable deformities and infirmities under the oppression of a disproportionate unhappiness, as the vertebral column beneath too low a vault?Is there not in every human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish?

     Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every physiologist would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had he beheld at Toulon, during the hours of repose, which were for Jean Valjean hours of revery, this gloomy galley-slave, seated with folded arms upon the bar of some capstan, with the end of his chain thrust into his pocket to prevent its dragging, serious, silent, and thoughtful, a pariah of the laws which regarded the man with wrath, condemned by civilization, and regarding heaven with severity.

     Certainly,--and we make no attempt to dissimulate the fact,-- the observing physiologist would have beheld an irremediable misery; he would, perchance, have pitied this sick man, of the law's making; but he would not have even essayed any treatment; he would have turned aside his gaze from the caverns of which he would have caught a glimpse within this soul, and, like Dante at the portals of hell, he would have effaced from this existence the word which the finger of God has, nevertheless, inscribed upon the brow of every man,--hope.

     Was this state of his soul, which we have attempted to analyze, as perfectly clear to Jean Valjean as we have tried to render it for those who read us?Did Jean Valjean distinctly perceive, after their formation, and had he seen distinctly during the process of their formation, all the elements of which his moral misery was composed?Had this rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear perception of the succession of ideas through which he had, by degrees, mounted and descended to the lugubrious aspects which had, for so many years, formed the inner horizon of his spirit? Was he conscious of all that passed within him, and of all that was working there?That is something which we do not presume to state; it is something which we do not even believe.There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his misfortune, to prevent much vagueness from still lingering there.At times he did not rightly know himself what he felt.Jean Valjean was in the shadows; he suffered in the shadows; he hated in the shadows; one might have said that he hated in advance of himself.He dwelt habitually in this shadow, feeling his way like a blind man and a dreamer.Only, at intervals, there suddenly came to him, from without and from within, an access of wrath, a surcharge of suffering, a livid and rapid flash which illuminated his whole soul, and caused to appear abruptly all around him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful light, the hideous precipices and the sombre perspective of his destiny.

     The flash passed, the night closed in again; and where was he? He no longer knew.The peculiarity of pains of this nature, in which that which is pitiless--that is to say, that which is brutalizing--predominates, is to transform a man, little by little, by a sort of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast; sometimes into a ferocious beast.

     Jean Valjean's successive and obstinate attempts at escape would alone suffice to prove this strange working of the law upon the human soul.Jean Valjean would have renewed these attempts, utterly useless and foolish as they were, as often as the opportunity had presented itself, without reflecting for an instant on the result, nor on the experiences which he had already gone through. He escaped impetuously, like the wolf who finds his cage open. Instinct said to him, "Flee!"Reason would have said, "Remain!" But in the presence of so violent a temptation, reason vanished; nothing remained but instinct.The beast alone acted.When he was recaptured, the fresh severities inflicted on him only served to render him still more wild.

     One detail, which we must not omit, is that he possessed a physical strength which was not approached by a single one of the denizens of the galleys.At work, at paying out a cable or winding up a capstan, Jean Valjean was worth four men.He sometimes lifted and sustained enormous weights on his back; and when the occasion demanded it, he replaced that implement which is called a jack-screw, and was formerly called orgueil (pride), whence, we may remark in passing, is derived the name of the Rue Montorgueil, near the Halles (Fishmarket) in paris.His comrades had nicknamed him Jean the Jack-screw. Once, when they were repairing the balcony of the town-hall at Toulon, one of those admirable caryatids of puget, which support the balcony, became loosened, and was on the point of falling.Jean Valjean, who was present, supported the caryatid with his shoulder, and gave the workmen time to arrive.

     His suppleness even exceeded his strength.Certain convicts who were forever dreaming of escape, ended by making a veritable science of force and skill combined.It is the science of muscles. An entire system of mysterious statics is daily practised by prisoners, men who are forever envious of the flies and birds. To climb a vertical surface, and to find points of support where hardly a projection was visible, was play to Jean Valjean. An angle of the wall being given, with the tension of his back and legs, with his elbows and his heels fitted into the unevenness of the stone, he raised himself as if by magic to the third story. He sometimes mounted thus even to the roof of the galley prison.

     He spoke but little.He laughed not at all.An excessive emotion was required to wring from him, once or twice a year, that lugubrious laugh of the convict, which is like the echo of the laugh of a demon. To all appearance, he seemed to be occupied in the constant contemplation of something terrible.

     He was absorbed, in fact.

     Athwart the unhealthy perceptions of an incomplete nature and a crushed intelligence, he was confusedly conscious that some monstrous thing was resting on him.In that obscure and wan shadow within which he crawled, each time that he turned his neck and essayed to raise his glance, he perceived with terror, mingled with rage, a sort of frightful accumulation of things, collecting and mounting above him, beyond the range of his vision,-- laws, prejudices, men, and deeds,--whose outlines escaped him, whose mass terrified him, and which was nothing else than that prodigious pyramid which we call civilization.He distinguished, here and there in that swarming and formless mass, now near him, now afar off and on inaccessible table-lands, some group, some detail, vividly illuminated; here the galley-sergeant and his cudgel; there the gendarme and his sword; yonder the mitred archbishop; away at the top, like a sort of sun, the Emperor, crowned and dazzling. It seemed to him that these distant splendors, far from dissipating his night, rendered it more funereal and more black.All this-- laws, prejudices, deeds, men, things--went and came above him, over his head, in accordance with the complicated and mysterious movement which God imparts to civilization, walking over him and crushing him with I know not what peacefulness in its cruelty and inexorability in its indifference.Souls which have fallen to the bottom of all possible misfortune, unhappy men lost in the lowest of those limbos at which no one any longer looks, the reproved of the law, feel the whole weight of this human society, so formidable for him who is without, so frightful for him who is beneath, resting upon their heads.

     In this situation Jean Valjean meditated; and what could be the nature of his meditation?
     If the grain of millet beneath the millstone had thoughts, it would, doubtless, think that same thing which Jean Valjean thought.

     All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagories full of realities, had eventually created for him a sort of interior state which is almost indescribable.

     At times, amid his convict toil, he paused.He fell to thinking. His reason, at one and the same time riper and more troubled than of yore, rose in revolt.Everything which had happened to him seemed to him absurd; everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible.He said to himself, "It is a dream." He gazed at the galley-sergeant standing a few paces from him; the galley-sergeant seemed a phantom to him.All of a sudden the phantom dealt him a blow with his cudgel.

     Visible nature hardly existed for him.It would almost be true to say that there existed for Jean Valjean neither sun, nor fine summer days, nor radiant sky, nor fresh April dawns. I know not what vent-hole daylight habitually illumined his soul.

     To sum up, in conclusion, that which can be summed up and translated into positive results in all that we have just pointed out, we will confine ourselves to the statement that, in the course of nineteen years, Jean Valjean, the inoffensive tree-pruner of Faverolles, the formidable convict of Toulon, had become capable, thanks to the manner in which the galleys had moulded him, of two sorts of evil action:firstly, of evil action which was rapid, unpremeditated, dashing, entirely instinctive, in the nature of reprisals for the evil which he had undergone; secondly, of evil action which was serious, grave, consciously argued out and premeditated, with the false ideas which such a misfortune can furnish.His deliberate deeds passed through three successive phases, which natures of a certain stamp can alone traverse,--reasoning, will, perseverance. He had for moving causes his habitual wrath, bitterness of soul, a profound sense of indignities suffered, the reaction even against the good, the innocent, and the just, if there are any such. The point of departure, like the point of arrival, for all his thoughts, was hatred of human law; that hatred which, if it be not arrested in its development by some providential incident, becomes, within a given time, the hatred of society, then the hatred of the human race, then the hatred of creation, and which manifests itself by a vague, incessant, and brutal desire to do harm to some living being, no matter whom.It will be perceived that it was not without reason that Jean Valjean's passport described him as a very dangerous man.

     From year to year this soul had dried away slowly, but with fatal sureness.When the heart is dry, the eye is dry.On his departure from the galleys it had been nineteen years since he had shed a tear.

     让我们试着叙述一下。社会必须正视这些事，因为这些事是它自己制造出来的。我们已经说过，冉阿让只是个没有知识的人，虽然并不是个愚蠢的人，他心中生来就燃着性灵的光。愁苦（愁苦也有它的光）更增加了他心里的那一点微光。他终日受着棍棒、鞭笞、镣铐、禁闭、疲乏之苦，受着狱中烈日的折磨，睡在囚犯的木板床上他扪心自问，反躬自剩他自己组织法庭。他开始审问自己。

     他承认自己不是一个无罪之人，受的惩处也并不过分。他承认自己做了一种应该受指责的鲁莽行为；假使当初他肯向人乞讨那块面包，人家也许不会不给；无论给与不给，他总应该从别人的哀怜或自己的工作中，去等待那块面包；有些人说肚子饿了还能等待么？这并不是一条无可辩驳的理由；真正饿死的事根本就很少见到；并且无论是幸或不幸，人类生来在肉体上和精神上总是能长期受苦、多方受苦而不至于送命的；所以应当忍耐；即使是为那些可怜的孩子们着想，那样做也比较好一些；象他那样一个不幸的贱人也敢挺身和整个社会搏斗，还自以为依靠偷窃，就可以解决困难，那完全是一种疯狂举动；不管怎样，如果你通过一道门能脱离穷困，但同时又落入不名誉的境地，那样的门是一扇坏门；总而言之，他错了。

     随后他又问自己：

     在他这次走上绝路的过程中，他是不是唯一有过错的人？愿意工作，但缺少工作，愿意劳动，而又缺少面包，首先这能不能不算是件严重的事呢？后来，犯了过错，并且供认了，处罚又是否苛刻过分了呢？法律在处罚方面所犯的错误，是否比犯人在犯罪方面所犯的错误更要严重些呢？天平的两端，处罚那端的砝码是否太重了一些呢？加重处罚绝不能消除过错；加重处罚的结果并不能扭转情势，并不能以惩罚者的过错代替犯罪者的过错，也并不能让犯罪的人转为受害的人，让债务人转为债权人，让侵犯人权的人受到人权的保障，这种看法对不对呢？企图越狱一次，便加重处罚一次，这种作法的结果，是否构成强者对弱者的谋害，是否构成社会侵犯个人的罪行，并使这种罪行每天都在重犯，一 直延续到十九年之久呢？

     他再问自己：人类社会是否有权使它的成员在某种情况下接受它那种毫无道理的漠不关心的态度，而在另一种情况下又同样接受它那种无情的不放心的态度，并使一个穷苦的人永远陷入一种不是缺乏（工作的缺乏）就是过量（刑罚的过量）的苦海中呢？贫富的形成往往由于机会，在社会的成员中，分得财富最少的人也正是最需要照顾的人，而社会对他们恰恰却又苛求最甚，这样是否是合情合理的呢？

     他提出这些问题，并作出结论之后，他便开始审判社会，并且判了它的罪。

     他凭藉心中的愤怒判了它的罪。他认为社会对他的遭遇是应该负责的，他下定决心，将来总有一天，他要和它算帐。他宣称他自己对别人造成的损失和别人对他造成的损失，两相比较，太不平均，他最后的结论是他所受的处罚，实际上并不是不公平，而是肯定不平等的。

     盛怒可能是疯狂和妄诞的，发怒有时也会产生过错的，但是，人，如果不是在某一方面确有情由，是不会愤慨的。冉阿让觉得自己是在愤慨了。

     再说，人类社会所加给他的只有残害。他所看到的社会，历来都是摆在它的打击对象面前自称为正义的那一副怒容。世人和他接触，无非是为了要达到迫害他的目的。他和他们接触，每次都受到打击。从他的幼年，从失去母亲、失去姐姐以来，他从来没有听到过一句友好的话，也从未见过一次和善的面目。由痛苦到痛苦，他慢慢得出了一种结论：人生即战争，并且在这场战争里，他是一个失败者。他除了仇恨以外没有其他武器。于是他下定决心，要在监牢里磨练他的这种武器，并带着它出狱。

     有些愚昧的教士在土伦办了一所囚犯学校，把一些必要的课程教给那些不幸人中的有毅力者。他就是那些有毅力者中的一个。他四十岁进学校，学习了读，写，算。他感到提高他的知识，也就是加强他的仇恨。在某种情况下，教育和智力都是可以起助恶的作用的。

     有件事说来很可惜，他在审判了造成他的不幸的社会以后，他接着下来又审判创造社会的上帝。他也给上帝定了罪。

     在那十九年的苦刑和奴役中，这个人的心是一面上升了，一面也堕落了。他一面醒悟，一面糊涂。我们已经知道，冉阿让并不是一个本性恶劣的人。初进监牢时他还是个好人。他在监牢里判了社会的罪后觉得自己的心狠起来了，在判了上帝的罪后他觉得自己成了天不怕地不怕的人。我们在这里必须得仔细想想。人的性情真能那样彻彻底底完全改变吗？人由上帝创造，生而性善，能通过人力使他变得性恶吗？灵魂能不能由于恶劣命运的影响彻底转变成恶劣的呢？人心难道也能象矮屋下的背脊一样，因痛苦的压迫过甚而蜷屈萎缩变为畸形丑态，造成各种不可救药的残废吗？在每个人的心里，特别是在冉阿让的心里，难道没有一点原始的火星，一种来自上帝的禀赋，在人间不朽，在天上不灭，可以因善而发扬、鼓舞、光大、昌炽，发为奇观异彩，并且永远也不会被恶完全扑灭吗？

     这是一些严重而深奥的问题，任何一个生理学家，如果他在土伦看见过这个苦役犯叉着两条胳膊，坐在绞盘的铁杆上休息（休息也就是冉阿让思前想后的时刻），链头纳在衣袋里，以免拖曳着，神情颓丧、严肃、沉默、若有所思；如果他看见过这个被法律抛弃的贱人，经常以愤怒的目光注视着所有的人，如果他看见过这个被文明排斥了的罪犯，经常以仇恨的神色仰望天空，他也许会不假思索地对上面那些问题中最后的一个回答：“没有。”

     当然，我们也并不想隐瞒，这位作为观察者的生理学家也许会在这种场合，看出一种无可挽回的悲惨结局，他也许会替那个被法律伤害了的人叫屈喊冤，可是他却连医治的方法也没有考虑过，他也许会掉转头，不望那个人心上的伤口，他并且会象那个掉头不望地狱门的但丁，把上帝写在每个人前额上的“希望”二字，从这个人的生命中拭掉。他的思想状况，我们已试着分析过了，冉阿让本人对自己的思想状况，是否和我们替本书读者试作的分析一样明白呢？构成冉阿让精神痛苦的那一切因素，在形成以后，冉阿让是否看得清楚呢？在它们一一形成的过程中，他又是否看清楚过呢？他的思想是层层推进的，他一天胜过一天地，被困在许多愁惨的景象中颠来倒去，多年以来，他的精神，就始终被局限在那些悲惨景象的范围中，粗鲁无文的他对这种思想的发展层次是否都了解呢？他对自己思想的起伏波动是否很明确呢？那是我们不敢肯定的，也是我们不敢相信的。冉阿让太缺乏知识了，他虽然受了那么多的痛苦，但对这些事，却仍是迷迷糊糊的，有时，他甚至还不知道他所感受的究竟是什么。冉阿让落入黑暗中，他便在黑暗中吃苦，他便在黑暗中愤恨，我们可以说，他无所不恨。他经常生活在暗无天日的环境中，如同一个盲人或梦游者一样瞎摸乱撞。不过，在某些时候，他也会，由于内因或外因，忽然感到一股怒气的突袭，一阵异乎寻常的苦痛，他会感到突然出现一道惨淡的、一闪而逝的光，照彻他的整个心灵，同时也使他命运中的种种险恶的深渊和悲惨的远景，在那片凶光的照射下在他的前后左右一齐出现。

     闪光过后依旧是黑夜沉沉，他在什么地方？他又昏头昏脑了。

     那种刑罚的最不人道，也就是说，最足以践灭人的智慧之处，就是它特别能使人经过一种慢性的毒害后逐渐变作野兽，有时还变成猛兽。冉阿让屡次执拗不改地图谋越狱，已足够证明法律在人心上所起的那种特别作用。冉阿让的那种计划完全是无济于事的，愚蠢的，但是只要有机会，他总要试一试，而绝不考虑它的后果，也不想到既得的经验。他象一头狼，看见笼门了，总要仓惶出逃。本能向他说：“快逃！”理智却会向他说：“留下！”但是面对那样强烈的引诱，他的理智终于消失了，剩下的只是本能。在那里活动着的只是兽性。他在重新被捕以后受到了新处罚，又足以让他更加惊惶失措。

     有一件我们不该忽略的小事，就是他体质强壮，苦役牢里的那些人都比不上他。服劳役时，扭铁索，推绞盘，冉阿让抵得上四个人。他的手举得起、背也能够扛得动很大很重的东西。有时他可以代替一个千斤顶，千斤顶在从前叫做“骄子”，我们附带说一句，巴黎菜市场附近的那条骄子山街，便是因此得名的。他的伙伴们替他起了个浑名，叫冉千斤。一次，土伦市政厅正修理阳台，阳台下面有许多彼惹雕的人形柱，美丽可爱，其中一根脱了榫，几乎倒下来。当时冉阿让正在那里，他居然用肩头撑住了那根柱子等着其它工人来修理。

     他身体的轻捷比他的力气更可赞叹。有些囚徒整年梦想潜逃，于是他们把巧和力结合起来，形成一种真正的科学。那些无时不羡慕飞虫飞鸟的囚徒，每日都练习一种神奇的巧技。冉阿让的特长便是能直登陡壁，在不易发现的凸处找出着力之处。他在墙角里把肘弯和脚跟靠紧石块上的不平处，便能利用背部和腿弯的伸张力，妖魔似的登到四楼。有时，他还用那种方法直上监狱的房顶。

     他很少说话。他从不笑。必须要有一种外来的刺激才能使他发出一 种象是魔鬼笑声回音的苦笑，那也是一年难得一两次的事。看他那神气，仿佛随时在留心看着一种吓人的东西。

     他的确是副一心一意在想什么事的样子。他的禀赋既不完全，智力又受了摧残，通过他那种不健全的分辨能力，他隐约感到有一种怪物附在他身上。他在那阴暗、惨白、半明不暗的地方过着非人的生活，他每次转过头颈，想往上看时，便又恐怖又愤怒地看见在自己头上，层层叠叠地有一堆大得可怕的东西，法律、偏见、人和事，堆积如山，直到望不见的高度，崇危险峻，令人心悸，它的形状不是他所能知的，它的体积使他心胆俱裂，这并不是别的东西，只是那座不可思议的金字塔，即我们所谓的文明。这儿那儿，在那堆蠢蠢欲动、形状畸异、忽远忽近的东西上和一些高不可攀的高原上，他看见一 群群的人，被强烈的光线照得须眉毕现，这儿是携带棍棒的狱卒，手握钢刀的警察，那边是戴着高冠的大主教，最高处，一片圆光的中央，却是戴着冠冕、耀人双目的帝王。远处的那些奇观异彩，似乎不但不能惊醒他的沉梦，反而让他更加悲伤，更加惶惑。举凡法律、偏见、物体、人和事，都按上帝在文明方面所指定的神秘复杂的动态，在他的头上来来去去，用一种凶残却又平和、安详却又苛刻、难以言喻的态度在践踏他，蹂躏他。所有沉在恶运底下、陷在无人怜恤的十八层地狱里面、被法律所摈弃的人们，觉得这个社会的全部重量都压在了他们的头上，这种社会对置身它外面的人是多么可怕，对置身它下面的人又是多么可怕。

    在这种情况下，冉阿让东想西想，但是他的思想是怎样一种性质的呢？
     假使磨盘底下的黍粒有思维能力，它所想的也许就是冉阿让所想的了。

     结果，那鬼影幢幢的现实和充满了现实的鬼域，替他构成了一种几乎无可言喻的内心景象。有时，他正在干着牢里的工作，会忽然停下不动，默想起来。他的那种比以前更为成熟、但也更为混乱的理性起来反抗了。他觉得他所遭受的一切都是不合理的。环绕他的一切都是不近人情的人。他常对自己说这是一场梦，他望着那个站在他几步之外的狱卒，会觉得那是一个鬼，那个鬼突然给他吃了一棍。

     对他来说，这个历历可见的自然界是似有还无的。我们几乎可以说，对冉可让，无所谓太阳，无所谓春秋佳节，无所谓晴空，无所谓四月天的清凉晓色。我不知道是怎样一种黯淡的光，在常常照着他的心。

     最后，如果我们要把我们以上所谈的一切，择其可以概括的概括起来，指出一个明确结果的话，我们只能说，冉阿让，法维洛勒的一个安分守己的修树枝工人，土伦的一个强顽的囚犯，由于监狱潜移默化的作用，十九年来已有能力做出两种坏的行为：第一种坏行为是急切的、不加考虑的、轻躁的、完全出自本能的，是对他所受痛苦的反击；第二种坏行为是阴郁的、持重的、平心静气考虑过的、用他从痛苦中得来的那种错误观念深思熟虑过的。他的打算经常经过三个连续的层次：思考，决心，固执；只有某种特殊性格的人才会走上这条路。起因是由于长期愤慨，心灵的苦闷，由于受虐待而引起的深刻的反感、对人的反抗，包括对善良、无辜、公正的人的反抗，假如世上真有这几种人存在的话。他一切思想的出发点和目的，全是对人类法律的仇恨；那种仇恨，在它发展的过程中，如果得不到某种神智来加以制止，就会在一定的时刻变为对社会的仇恨，进而变成对人类的仇恨，再变成对造物的仇恨，最后变成一种无目标、无止境、凶狠残暴的为害欲，不问是谁，逢人便害。我们知道，那张护照称冉阿让“为人异常险狠”，并不是没有理由的。年复一年，这个人的心慢慢地、但是无可救药地越变越硬了。他的心一硬，他的眼泪也就干了。直到他出狱的那天，十九年中，他没流过一滴泪。

     A man overboard!

     What matters it?The vessel does not halt.The wind blows. That sombre ship has a path which it is forced to pursue. It passes on.

     The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges, he rises again to the surface; he calls, he stretches out his arms; he is not heard. The vessel, trembling under the hurricane, is wholly absorbed in its own workings; the passengers and sailors do not even see the drowning man; his miserable head is but a speck amid the immensity of the waves. He gives vent to desperate cries from out of the depths.What a spectre is that retreating sail!He gazes and gazes at it frantically. It retreats, it grows dim, it diminishes in size.He was there but just now, he was one of the crew, he went and came along the deck with the rest, he had his part of breath and of sunlight, he was a living man.Now, what has taken place?He has slipped, he has fallen; all is at an end.

     He is in the tremendous sea.Under foot he has nothing but what flees and crumbles.The billows, torn and lashed by the wind, encompass him hideously; the tossings of the abyss bear him away; all the tongues of water dash over his head; a populace of waves spits upon him; confused openings half devour him; every time that he sinks, he catches glimpses of precipices filled with night; frightful and unknown vegetations seize him, knot about his feet, draw him to them; he is conscious that he is becoming an abyss, that he forms part of the foam; the waves toss him from one to another; he drinks in the bitterness; the cowardly ocean attacks him furiously, to drown him; the enormity plays with his agony.It seems as though all that water were hate.

     Nevertheless, he struggles.
     He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he makes an effort; he swims.He, his petty strength all exhausted instantly, combats the inexhaustible.
     Where, then, is the ship?Yonder.Barely visible in the pale shadows of the horizon.

     The wind blows in gusts; all the foam overwhelms him. He raises his eyes and beholds only the lividness of the clouds. He witnesses, amid his death-pangs, the immense madness of the sea. He is tortured by this madness; he hears noises strange to man, which seem to come from beyond the limits of the earth, and from one knows not what frightful region beyond.

     There are birds in the clouds, just as there are angels above human distresses; but what can they do for him?They sing and fly and float, and he, he rattles in the death agony.

     He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time:the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud.
     Night descends; he has been swimming for hours; his strength is exhausted; that ship, that distant thing in which there were men, has vanished; he is alone in the formidable twilight gulf; he sinks, he stiffens himself, he twists himself; he feels under him the monstrous billows of the invisible; he shouts.

     There are no more men.Where is God?
     He shouts.Help!Help!He still shouts on.
     Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven.
     He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the reef; they are deaf.He beseeches the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the infinite.

     Around him darkness, fog, solitude, the stormy and nonsentient tumult, the undefined curling of those wild waters.In him horror and fatigue.
Beneath him the depths.Not a point of support.He thinks of the gloomy adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold paralyzes him.His hands contract convulsively; they close, and grasp nothingness.Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars!What is to be done?The desperate man gives up; he is weary, he chooses the alternative of death; he resists not; he lets himself go; he abandons his grip; and then he tosses forevermore in the lugubrious dreary depths of engulfment.

     Oh, implacable march of human societies!Oh, losses of men and of souls on the way!Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip! Disastrous absence of help!Oh, moral death!
     The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling their condemned.The sea is the immensity of wretchedness.
     The soul, going down stream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall resuscitate it?

     一个人掉进海里了！有什么关系！船是不会停的。风刮着，这条阴暗的船有它非走不可的航程。它驶过去了。那个人没了顶，随后又出现，浮浮沉沉，漂在水面，他叫喊，扬手，却无人听见他的喊声。船呢，在飓风里飘荡不定，人们正忙于操作，海员和旅客，对那个落水者，甚至连望都不望一眼了，他那个可怜的头只是沧海中的一颗粟而已。

    他在深处发出了悲惨的呼号。那条驶去的帆船简直是个鬼影！他望着它，发狂似的望着它。它越去越远，船影渐淡，船身也渐小了。刚才他还在那船上，是船上人中的一员，和其余的人一道在甲板上来来往往，有他的一份空气和阳光，还是一个活生生的人。现在，出了什么事呢？他跌了一跤，掉了下去，这样就完了。

    他被围困在惊涛骇浪中。他的脚只能踏着虚空，只能往下沉。迎风崩裂的波涛狠狠地包围着他，波峰波谷带着他反转上下，一缕缕的白练飞击到他的头上，一阵阵的狂澜向他喷唾，巨浪的口把他吞没殆尽；他每次下沉，都隐约看见那黑暗的深渊，一些未曾见过的奇怪植物抓住他，缠着他的脚，把他扯往它们那里去；他觉得自己也成了旋涡，也成了泡沫的一部分，波涛把他来回抛掷；他喝着苦汁，无情的海水前仆后继，定要把他淹没，浩瀚的大海在拿他的垂死挣扎取乐。好象这里的水对他全怀有仇恨。

    但是他仍旧挣扎，尽力拯救自己，他鼓起精神，奋力泅泳。他微弱的力气立刻耗尽了，却仍旧和无边无际的波涛博斗着。船到哪里去了？在前面。在水天相接、惨淡无光的远方，仿佛还隐约可辨。

    狂风在吼，无穷的浪花在向他狂扑。他抬起眼睛，只见灰暗行云的颜色。他气息奄奄地目击大海的疯狂，而这种疯狂已把他置于绝境了。他听见一片从未听过的怪声，仿佛是从世外、从不知何处的恐怖国度中飞来。

    在云里有许多飞鸟，如同在人生祸患的上面有许多天使。但是它们和他有什么相干呢？它们飞、鸣、翱翔；至于他，他挣扎待毙。他觉得自己同时被两种广大无边的东西所掩埋：海与天，一种是墓穴，一种是殓衣。黑夜来了，他已泅泳了好几个钟头，力气用尽了，那条船，那条载着一些人的远远的船，已经不见了。他孤零零陷在那可怕的、笼罩在暮色中的深渊里，他往下沉，他挣扎，他扭动身体。在他的身底下他感到有些目不能见的渺茫的怪物。他号呼着。人全不在了。上帝又在什么地方呢？

    他喊着，救命呀！救命呀！他不停地喊着。水边没有一点东西，天上也没有一点东西。他向空际、波涛、海藻、礁石哀求，它们都听而不闻；他向暴风央求，坚强的暴风只服从太空的号令。在他四周的是夜色、暮霭、寂寥、奔腾放逐的骚乱、不停起伏的怒涛。在他的身体中只有恐怖和疲惫。在他的脚下只有一片虚空，没有立足之处。他想到他的尸体将漂浮在那无限凄凉的幽冥里。无底的冷水使他僵直。他的手痉挛，握着的是虚空。风，云，漩流，狂飙，无用的群星！怎么办呵？那失望的人只有听从命运摆布了，穷于应付的人往往坐以待毙，他只得听其自然，任其飘荡，不再抵抗了，看啊，他从此落入灭亡的阴惨深渊中去了。呵，人类社会历史不变的行程！途中要丧失多少人和灵魂！人类社会是所有那些被法律抛弃了的人的汪洋！那里最惨的是没有援助！呵，这是精神的死亡！

    海，就是冷酷无情的法律抛掷它牺牲品的总渊薮。海，等于无边的苦难。
    漂在那深渊里的心灵会变成尸体，将来谁又来使它复活呢？

    When the hour came for him to take his departure from the galleys, when Jean Valjean heard in his ear the strange words, Thou art free! the moment seemed improbable and unprecedented; a ray of vivid light, a ray of the true light of the living, suddenly penetrated within him. But it was not long before this ray paled.Jean Valjean had been dazzled by the idea of liberty.He had believed in a new life. He very speedily perceived what sort of liberty it is to which a yellow passport is provided.

    And this was encompassed with much bitterness.He had calculated that his earnings, during his sojourn in the galleys, ought to amount to a hundred and seventy-one francs.It is but just to add that he had forgotten to include in his calculations the forced repose of Sundays and festival days during nineteen years, which entailed a diminution of about eighty francs.At all events, his hoard had been reduced by various local levies to the sum of one hundred and nine francs fifteen sous, which had been counted out to him on his departure. He had understood nothing of this, and had thought himself wronged. Let us say the word--robbed.

    On the day following his liberation, he saw, at Grasse, in front of an orange-flower distillery, some men engaged in unloading bales. He offered his services.Business was pressing; they were accepted. He set to work.He was intelligent, robust, adroit; he did his best; the master seemed pleased.While he was at work, a gendarme passed, observed him, and demanded his papers.It was necessary to show him the yellow passport.That done, Jean Valjean resumed his labor. A little while before he had questioned one of the workmen as to the amount which they earned each day at this occupation; he had been told thirty sous.When evening arrived, as he was forced to set out again on the following day, he presented himself to the owner of the distillery and requested to be paid.The owner did not utter a word, but handed him fifteen sous.He objected. He was told, "That is enough for thee."He persisted.The master looked him straight between the eyes, and said to him "Beware of the prison."

    There, again, he considered that he had been robbed.
    Society, the State, by diminishing his hoard, had robbed him wholesale. Now it was the individual who was robbing him at retail.
    Liberation is not deliverance.One gets free from the galleys, but not from the sentence.
    That is what happened to him at Grasse.We have seen in what manner he was received at D----

     当冉阿让出狱时，他听见有人在他耳边说了这样一句奇特的话，“你自由了”，那一刻竟仿佛是非真实的，闻所未闻的；一道从未有过的强烈的光，一道人生的真实的光突然射进他的心里。但是这道光，一会儿就黯淡下去了。冉阿让起初想到自由，不禁欣喜若狂，他以为获得新生命了。但他很快又想到，既然拿的是一张黄护照，所谓自由也就是那么一回事。

    而且在这件事也还有不少的苦恼。他计算过，他的储蓄，按照他在狱中度过的岁月计算，本应有一百七十一个法郎。还应当指出，十九年中，礼拜日和节日的强制休息大致要使他少嫌二十四个法郎，他还忘了把那个数目加入他的帐目。不管怎样，他的储蓄经过一贯的七折八扣以后，已减到一百○九个法郎十五个苏。那便是他在出狱时所领到的数目。他虽然不了解这其中的道理，但他还是感到他吃了亏。让我们把话说明白，他是被人偷窃了。出狱的第二天，他到了格拉斯，他在一家橙花香精提炼厂的门前，看见许多人在卸货。他请求参加工作。那时工作正忙，他们同意了。他便干了起来。他聪明、强壮、伶俐，他尽力搬运，主人似乎也满意。正在他工作时，有个警察走过，注意到他，便向他要证件。他只好把那黄护照拿出来。警察看完以后，冉阿让又去工作。他先头问过一个工人，做那种工作每天可以赚多少钱。那工人回答他说：“三十个苏。”到了晚上，他走去找那香精厂的厂主，要求把工资付给他，因为第二天一早他便得上路。厂主没说一句话，给了他二十五个苏。他提出要求。那人回答他说：“这对你已是够好的了。”他坚持要。那主人睁圆了两眼对他说：“小心黑屋子。”

    那一次，他又觉得自己被偷窃了。
    社会、政府，在削减他的储蓄上大大地抢窃了他一次，现在是轮到那小子来抢窃他了。
    被释放并不等于得到解放。他虽然出了牢狱，却仍背着罪名。
    那就是他在格拉斯遇到的事，至于后来他在迪涅受到的对待，我们已经了解了。

     As the Cathedral clock struck two in the morning, Jean Valjean awoke.
     What woke him was that his bed was too good.It was nearly twenty years since he had slept in a bed, and, although he had not undressed, the sensation was too novel not to disturb his slumbers.

     He had slept more than four hours.His fatigue had passed away. He was accustomed not to devote many hours to repose.
     He opened his eyes and stared into the gloom which surrounded him; then he closed them again, with the intention of going to sleep once more.

     When many varied sensations have agitated the day, when various matters preoccupy the mind, one falls asleep once, but not a second time. Sleep comes more easily than it returns.This is what happened to Jean Valjean.He could not get to sleep again, and he fell to thinking.

     He was at one of those moments when the thoughts which one has in one's mind are troubled.There was a sort of dark confusion in his brain. His memories of the olden time and of the immediate present floated there pell-mell and mingled confusedly, losing their proper forms, becoming disproportionately large, then suddenly disappearing, as in a muddy and perturbed pool.Many thoughts occurred to him; but there was one which kept constantly presenting itself afresh, and which drove away all others.We will mention this thought at once: he had observed the six sets of silver forks and spoons and the ladle which Madame Magloire had placed on the table.

     Those six sets of silver haunted him.--They were there.--A few paces distant.--Just as he was traversing the adjoining room to reach the one in which he then was, the old servant-woman had been in the act of placing them in a little cupboard near the head of the bed.-- He had taken careful note of this cupboard.--On the right, as you entered from the dining-room.--They were solid.--And old silver.-- From the ladle one could get at least two hundred francs.-- Double what he had earned in nineteen years.--It is true that he would have earned more if "the administration had not robbed him."

     His mind wavered for a whole hour in fluctuations with which there was certainly mingled some struggle.Three o'clock struck.He opened his eyes again, drew himself up abruptly into a sitting posture, stretched out his arm and felt of his knapsack, which he had thrown down on a corner of the alcove; then he hung his legs over the edge of the bed, and placed his feet on the floor, and thus found himself, almost without knowing it, seated on his bed.

     He remained for a time thoughtfully in this attitude, which would have been suggestive of something sinister for any one who had seen him thus in the dark, the only person awake in that house where all were sleeping.All of a sudden he stooped down, removed his shoes and placed them softly on the mat beside the bed; then he resumed his thoughtful attitude, and became motionless once more.

     Throughout this hideous meditation, the thoughts which we have above indicated moved incessantly through his brain; entered, withdrew, re-entered, and in a manner oppressed him; and then he thought, also, without knowing why, and with the mechanical persistence of revery, of a convict named Brevet, whom he had known in the galleys, and whose trousers had been upheld by a single suspender of knitted cotton. The checkered pattern of that suspender recurred incessantly to his mind.

     He remained in this situation, and would have so remained indefinitely, even until daybreak, had not the clock struck one--the half or quarter hour.It seemed to him that that stroke said to him, "Come on!"

     He rose to his feet, hesitated still another moment, and listened; all was quiet in the house; then he walked straight ahead, with short steps, to the window, of which he caught a glimpse. The night was not very dark; there was a full moon, across which coursed large clouds driven by the wind.This created, outdoors, alternate shadow and gleams of light, eclipses, then bright openings of the clouds; and indoors a sort of twilight.This twilight, sufficient to enable a person to see his way, intermittent on account of the clouds, resembled the sort of livid light which falls through an air-hole in a cellar, before which the passersby come and go.On arriving at the window, Jean Valjean examined it. It had no grating; it opened in the garden and was fastened, according to the fashion of the country, only by a small pin. He opened it; but as a rush of cold and piercing air penetrated the room abruptly, he closed it again immediately.He scrutinized the garden with that attentive gaze which studies rather than looks. The garden was enclosed by a tolerably low white wall, easy to climb. Far away, at the extremity, he perceived tops of trees, spaced at regular intervals, which indicated that the wall separated the garden from an avenue or lane planted with trees.

     Having taken this survey, he executed a movement like that of a man who has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack, opened it, fumbled in it, pulled out of it something which he placed on the bed, put his shoes into one of his pockets, shut the whole thing up again, threw the knapsack on his shoulders, put on his cap, drew the visor down over his eyes, felt for his cudgel, went and placed it in the angle of the window; then returned to the bed, and resolutely seized the object which he had deposited there. It resembled a short bar of iron, pointed like a pike at one end. It would have been difficult to distinguish in that darkness for what employment that bit of iron could have been designed. perhaps it was a lever; possibly it was a club.

     In the daytime it would have been possible to recognize it as nothing more than a miner's candlestick.Convicts were, at that period, sometimes employed in quarrying stone from the lofty hills which environ Toulon, and it was not rare for them to have miners' tools at their command.These miners' candlesticks are of massive iron, terminated at the lower extremity by a point, by means of which they are stuck into the rock.

     He took the candlestick in his right hand; holding his breath and trying to deaden the sound of his tread, he directed his steps to the door of the adjoining room, occupied by the Bishop, as we already know.
     On arriving at this door, he found it ajar.The Bishop had not closed it.

     天主堂的钟正敲着早晨两点，冉阿让醒了。那张床太舒服，所以他醒了。他没床睡已经快十九年了，他虽然没有脱衣，但那种感受太新奇，不会不影响他的睡眠。他睡了四个多钟头，疲乏已经过去。他早已习惯了不在休息上多费时间。

    他睁开眼睛，向他四周的黑暗望了一会儿，随后又闭上眼，想再睡一阵。
    如果白天的感触太多，脑子里的事太复杂，我们就只能睡，而无法重新入睡，睡容易，再睡便难。这正是冉阿让的情形。他无法再睡了，他便想。

    他正陷入这种思想紊乱的时刻，在他的脑中有一种看不见的、来来去去的东西。旧恨和新愁在他的心里翻来倒去，凌乱杂沓，漫无条理，既失去它们的形状，也无限扩大了它们的范围，随后又仿佛忽然消失在一股汹涌的浊流中。他想到许多事，但是其中有一件却反反复复出现，并且排开了其余的事。这一件，我们立即说出来，他留意到了马格洛大娘先头放在桌上的那六副银器和那只大汤勺。

    那六副银器使他烦懑。那些东西就在那里。只有几步路。刚才他经过隔壁那间屋子走到他房里来时，老大娘正把那些东西放在床头的小壁橱里。他特别注意了那壁橱。进餐室，朝右走。那些东西多重呵！并且是古银器，连那把大勺最少也能卖二百法郎。那将是他在十九年里所赚的一倍。的确，假使“官府”没有“偷盗”他，他也许还能多赚一点。他心里反反复复，踌躇不决，斗争了整整一个钟头。三点敲过了。他重新睁开眼睛，忽然坐了起来，伸手去摸他先头丢在壁厢角里的那只布袋，随后他垂下两腿，又把脚踏在地上，几乎是不知道怎样坐在了床边的。

    他那样坐着，发了一阵呆，房子里的人全睡着了，唯有他独自一人醒着，如果有人看见他那样呆坐在黑暗角落里，一定会大吃一惊的。他忽然弯下腰去，脱下鞋子，轻轻放在床前的席子上，又恢复他那发呆的样子，坐着不动。

    在那种可怕的斗争中，我们刚指出的那种念头不停地在他的脑海里翻搅着，进去又出来，出来又进去，使他感到了一种压力；同时他不知道为什么，会带着梦想中那种机械的顽固性，想到他从前在监狱里认识的一个叫布莱卫的囚犯，那人的裤子只用一根棉织的背带吊祝那根背带的棋盘格花纹不停地在他脑子里显现出来。

    他在那种情形下呆着不动，并且可能会一直呆到天明，如果那只挂钟没有敲那一下——报一刻或报半点的一下。那一下仿佛是对他说：“来吧！”

    他站起来，又迟疑了片刻，再侧耳细听，房间里一点动静也没有，于是他小步小步一直朝前，走到了隐约可辨的窗边。当时夜色并不很暗，风高月圆，白云掩映；云来月隐，云过月明，因此窗外忽明忽暗，室内也偶有微光。那种微光，足够让室内的人行走，由于行云的作用，屋内也乍明乍暗，仿佛是人在地下室里，见风窗外面不时有人来往一样，因而室内黯淡的光也忽强忽弱。冉阿让走到窗子边，把它仔细看了一遍，它没有铁闩，只有它的活梢扣着，这原是那地方的习惯。窗外便是那园子。他把窗子打开，于是一股冷气突然钻进房来，他又马上把它关上。他仔仔细细把那园子瞧了一遍，应当说，探视了一遍。园的四周绕着一 道白围墙，相当低，容易越过。在园子的尽头，围墙外面，他看见成列的树梢，彼此距离相等，说明墙外便是一条林荫道，或是一条栽有树木的小路。

    看了那一眼之后，他做了一个表示下决心的动作，向壁厢走去，拿起他的布袋，打开，从里面搜出一件东西，放在床上，又把他的鞋子塞进袋里，扣好布袋，驮在肩上，戴上他的便帽，帽檐齐眉，又伸手去摸他的棍子，把它放在窗角上，再回到床边，坚决地拿起先头放在床上的那件东西。好象是根短铁钎，一端磨得和标熗一样尖。在黑暗里我们不易辨出那铁钎是为了作什么用才磨成那个样子的。这也许是根撬棍，也许是把铁杵。

    如果是在白天，我们便认得出来，那只是一根矿工用的蜡烛钎。当时，常常派犯人到土伦周围的那些高丘上去采取岩石，他们便常常持有矿工的器械。矿工的蜡烛钎是用粗铁条做的，下面一端尖，为了便于插在岩石里。

他用右手握住那根烛钎，屏住呼吸，脚步放轻，走向隔壁那间屋子，我们知道，那是主教的卧房。走到门边，他看见门是掩着的，留了一条缝。主教并未关上它。

     Jean Valjean listened.Not a sound.
     He gave the door a push.
     He pushed it gently with the tip of his finger, lightly, with the furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering.

     The door yielded to this pressure, and made an imperceptible and silent movement, which enlarged the opening a little.
     He waited a moment; then gave the door a second and a bolder push.

     It continued to yield in silence.The opening was now large enough to allow him to pass.But near the door there stood a little table, which formed an embarrassing angle with it, and barred the entrance.
     Jean Valjean recognized the difficulty.It was necessary, at any cost, to enlarge the aperture still further.

     He decided on his course of action, and gave the door a third push, more energetic than the two preceding.This time a badly oiled hinge suddenly emitted amid the silence a hoarse and prolonged cry.
     Jean Valjean shuddered.The noise of the hinge rang in his ears with something of the piercing and formidable sound of the trump of the Day of Judgment.

     In the fantastic exaggerations of the first moment he almost imagined that that hinge had just become animated, and had suddenly assumed a terrible life, and that it was barking like a dog to arouse every one, and warn and to wake those who were asleep.He halted, shuddering, bewildered, and fell back from the tips of his toes upon his heels. He heard the arteries in his temples beating like two forge hammers, and it seemed to him that his breath issued from his breast with the roar of the wind issuing from a cavern.It seemed impossible to him that the horrible clamor of that irritated hinge should not have disturbed the entire household, like the shock of an earthquake; the door, pushed by him, had taken the alarm, and had shouted; the old man would rise at once; the two old women would shriek out; people would come to their assistance; in less than a quarter of an hour the town would be in an uproar, and the gendarmerie on hand. For a moment he thought himself lost.

     He remained where he was, petrified like the statue of salt, not daring to make a movement.Several minutes elapsed.The door had fallen wide open.He ventured to peep into the next room. Nothing had stirred there.He lent an ear.Nothing was moving in the house.The noise made by the rusty hinge had not awakened any one.

     This first danger was past; but there still reigned a frightful tumult within him.Nevertheless, he did not retreat.Even when he had thought himself lost, he had not drawn back.His only thought now was to finish as soon as possible.He took a step and entered the room.

     This room was in a state of perfect calm.Here and there vague and confused forms were distinguishable, which in the daylight were papers scattered on a table, open folios, volumes piled upon a stool, an arm-chair heaped with clothing, a prie-Dieu, and which at that hour were only shadowy corners and whitish spots.Jean Valjean advanced with precaution, taking care not to knock against the furniture. He could hear, at the extremity of the room, the even and tranquil breathing of the sleeping Bishop.

     He suddenly came to a halt.He was near the bed.He had arrived there sooner than he had thought for.

     Nature sometimes mingles her effects and her spectacles with our actions with sombre and intelligent appropriateness, as though she desired to make us reflect.For the last half-hour a large cloud had covered the heavens.At the moment when Jean Valjean paused in front of the bed, this cloud parted, as though on purpose, and a ray of light, traversing the long window, suddenly illuminated the Bishop's pale face.He was sleeping peacefully.He lay in his bed almost completely dressed, on account of the cold of the Basses-Alps, in a garment of brown wool, which covered his arms to the wrists.His head was thrown back on the pillow, in the careless attitude of repose; his hand, adorned with the pastoral ring, and whence had fallen so many good deeds and so many holy actions, was hanging over the edge of the bed.His whole face was illumined with a vague expression of satisfaction, of hope, and of felicity. It was more than a smile, and almost a radiance.He bore upon his brow the indescribable reflection of a light which was invisible. The soul of the just contemplates in sleep a mysterious heaven.

     A reflection of that heaven rested on the Bishop.
     It was, at the same time, a luminous transparency, for that heaven was within him.That heaven was his conscience.

     At the moment when the ray of moonlight superposed itself, so to speak, upon that inward radiance, the sleeping Bishop seemed as in a glory. It remained, however, gentle and veiled in an ineffable half-light. That moon in the sky, that slumbering nature, that garden without a quiver, that house which was so calm, the hour, the moment, the silence, added some solemn and unspeakable quality to the venerable repose of this man, and enveloped in a sort of serene and majestic aureole that white hair, those closed eyes, that face in which all was hope and all was confidence, that head of an old man, and that slumber of an infant.

     There was something almost divine in this man, who was thus august, without being himself aware of it.

     Jean Valjean was in the shadow, and stood motionless, with his iron candlestick in his hand, frightened by this luminous old man. Never had he beheld anything like this.This confidence terrified him. The moral world has no grander spectacle than this:a troubled and uneasy conscience, which has arrived on the brink of an evil action, contemplating the slumber of the just.

     That slumber in that isolation, and with a neighbor like himself, had about it something sublime, of which he was vaguely but imperiously conscious.

     No one could have told what was passing within him, not even himself. In order to attempt to form an idea of it, it is necessary to think of the most violent of things in the presence of the most gentle. Even on his visage it would have been impossible to distinguish anything with certainty.It was a sort of haggard astonishment. He gazed at it, and that was all.But what was his thought? It would have been impossible to divine it.What was evident was, that he was touched and astounded.But what was the nature of this emotion?

     His eye never quitted the old man.The only thing which was clearly to be inferred from his attitude and his physiognomy was a strange indecision. One would have said that he was hesitating between the two abysses,-- the one in which one loses one's self and that in which one saves one's self.He seemed prepared to crush that skull or to kiss that hand.

     At the expiration of a few minutes his left arm rose slowly towards his brow, and he took off his cap; then his arm fell back with the same deliberation, and Jean Valjean fell to meditating once more, his cap in his left hand, his club in his right hand, his hair bristling all over his savage head.

     The Bishop continued to sleep in profound peace beneath that terrifying gaze.
     The gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the chimney-piece, which seemed to be extending its arms to both of them, with a benediction for one and pardon for the other.

     Suddenly Jean Valjean replaced his cap on his brow; then stepped rapidly past the bed, without glancing at the Bishop, straight to the cupboard, which he saw near the head; he raised his iron candlestick as though to force the lock; the key was there; he opened it; the first thing which presented itself to him was the basket of silverware; he seized it, traversed the chamber with long strides, without taking any precautions and without troubling himself about the noise, gained the door, re-entered the oratory, opened the window, seized his cudgel, bestrode the window-sill of the ground-floor, put the silver into his knapsack, threw away the basket, crossed the garden, leaped over the wall like a tiger, and fled.

     冉阿让侧耳细听。一点声响也没有。他推门。
    他用指尖推着，轻轻地、缓缓地、正如一只胆怯心细、想要进门的猫。
    门被推以后，静悄悄地移动了几乎不能察觉的那么一点点，缝也稍宽了一丝。

    他等待了一会，再推，这次使力比较大。门悄然逐渐开大了。现在那条缝已能容他身子过去。但是门旁有张小桌子，桌子摆放的角度堵住了路，妨碍他通过那门缝。冉阿让了解那种困难。不管如何，他非得把门推得更开一些不可。

    他打定主意，再推，比先头两次更用力一些。这一次，却有个门臼，由于润滑油干了，在黑暗里突然发出一种嘶哑延续的声响。
    冉阿让大吃一惊。在他耳边门臼的响声就和末日审判的号角那样洪亮吓人。

    在开始行动的那一刹那，由于幻想的扩张，他几乎认为那个门臼活起来了，并且具有一种异常的活力，就象一头狂叫的狗要向他家告警，要叫醒那些睡着的人。

    他停下来，浑身哆嗦，不知所措，他原是踮着脚尖走路，现在连脚跟也着地了。他听见他的动脉在两边太阳穴里，象两个铁锤那样敲打着，胸中呼出的气也好象来自山洞的风声。他认为那个发怒的门臼所发出的那种震耳欲聋的声响，如果不是天崩地裂般的把全家惊醒，那是不可能的。他推的那扇门已有所警惕，并且已经叫喊；那个老人就要起来了，两个老姑娘也要大叫了，还有旁人都会前来搭救；不到一刻钟，满城都会骚乱，警察也会出动。他一下子认为自己完了。

    他立在原处惊惶失措，好象一尊石人，一动也不敢动。
    几分钟过去了。门大大地开着。他冒险把那房间瞧了一下。丝毫没有动静，他伸出耳朵听，整所房子里没有一点声音。那个锈门臼的响声并未惊醒任何人。

    第一次的危险已经过去了，但是他心里仍旧惊恐难安。但是他并不后退。即使是在他以为一切没有希望时，他也没有后退。他心里只想到要干就得抓紧。他向前一步，便跨进了那房间。
    那房间是完全寂静的。这儿那儿，他看见一些模糊紊乱的形影，如果是在白天便看得出来，那只是桌上一些零乱的纸张、展开的表册、圆凳上堆着的书本、一把堆着衣服的安乐椅、一把祈祷椅，可是在此时，这些东西却一齐变为黑黝黝的空穴和迷濛难辨的地带。冉阿让仍朝前走，谨慎小心，唯恐撞到了家具。他听到主教熟睡在那房间的尽头，发出均匀安静的呼吸。

    忽然他停下来。他已到了床边。他自己并没有料到会那样快就到了主教的床边。

    上天有时会在适当时刻，使万物的景象和人的行动发生巧妙的配合，从而产生出深刻的效果，仿佛有意要我们多多思考似的。大致在半个钟头以前，就已有一大片乌云遮着天空。正当冉阿让停在床前，那片乌云忽然散开了，好象是故意要那样做一样，一线月光也随即穿过长窗，正正照在主教的那张苍老的脸上。主教正安安稳稳地睡着。他几乎是和衣睡在床上的，因为下阿尔卑斯一带的夜晚很冷，一件棕色的羊毛衫盖住他的胳膊，直到腕边。他的头仰在枕头上，那正是安心休息的姿态，一只手垂在床边，指上戴着主教的指环，多少功德都是由这只手圆满了的。他的面容隐隐显出满足、乐观和安详的神情。那不仅仅是微笑，还差不多是容光的焕发。他额上反映出灵光，那是我们看不见的。心地正直的人在睡眠中也在景仰那神秘的天空。

    来自天空的一线光彩正照射在主教的身上。同时他本身也是光明剔透的，因为那片天就在他的心里。那片天就是他的信仰。正当月光射来重叠（不妨这样说）在他的心光上之际，熟睡着的主教就象是被包围在一圈灵光里。那种光却是柔和的，涵容在一种无可言喻的半明半暗的光里。天空的那片月光，地上的这种沉寂，这个了无声息的园子，这个静谧的人家，此时此刻，万籁俱寂，这一切，都使那慈祥老人酣畅的睡眠有着一种说不出的奇妙庄严的神态，并且还以一种端详肃静的圆光环绕着那头白发和那双合着的眼睛，那种充满了希望和赤忱的容颜，老人的面目和赤子般的睡眠。

    这个人不经意的无上尊严几乎可以和神明相媲美。
    冉阿让，他，却待在黑影里，手中拿着他的铁烛钎，立着不动，望着这位全身焕发光亮的老人，有些胆寒。他从来没有见过这样的人。他那种待人的赤忱使他惊骇。一个心怀叵测、濒于犯罪的人在景仰一个睡乡中的至人，精神领域中没有比这更为宏伟的场面了。

    他孤零零独自一人，却酣然睡在那样一个陌生人的旁边，他那种卓绝的心怀冉阿让多少也感觉到了，不过他不为所动。谁也说不出他的心情，连他自己也说不出。如果我们真要领会，就必须设想一种极端强暴的力和一种极端温和的力的并立。即使是从他的面色上，我们也肯定不能分辨出什么来。那只是一副凶顽而又惊骇的面孔。他望着，如此而已。但是他的心境是怎样的呢？那是无从揣测的。不过，他受到了感动，受到了困扰，那是很明显的。但是那种感动究竟属于什么性质的呢？他的眼睛没有离开老人。从他的姿势和面容上显露出来的，仅仅是一种奇特的犹豫神情。我们可以说，他正面对着两种关口而踌躇不前，一种是自绝的关口，一种是自救的关口。他仿佛已准备要击碎那头颅或去吻那只手。

    过了一会，他缓缓地举起他的左手，直到额边，脱下他的小帽，随后他的手又同样缓缓地落下去。冉阿让重又堕入冥想中了，左手拿着小帽，右手拿着铁钎，头发乱竖在他那粗野的头上。

    尽管他用如此可怕的目光望着主教，但主教仍安然酣睡。月光依稀照着壁炉上的那个耶稣受难像，他仿佛把两只手同时向他们两人伸出，为一个降福，为另一个赦宥。忽然，冉阿让拿起他的小帽，戴在头上，不看主教，急忙顺着床边，向他从床头能隐隐望见的那个壁橱走去，他翘起那根铁烛钎，好象要撬锁似的，但钥匙就插在那上面，他打开橱，他最先见到的东西，便是那篮银器，他提着那篮银器，大踏步穿过那间屋子，也不顾弄出声响了，走到门边，进入祈祷室，推开窗子，拿起木棍，跨过窗台，把银器放进布袋，丢下篮子，穿过园子，老虎般的跳过墙头逃走了。

    The next morning at sunrise Monseigneur Bienvenu was strolling in his garden.Madame Magloire ran up to him in utter consternation.
    "Monseigneur, Monseigneur!" she exclaimed, "does your Grace know where the basket of silver is?"

    "Yes," replied the Bishop.
    "Jesus the Lord be blessed!" she resumed; "I did not know what had become of it."
    The Bishop had just picked up the basket in a flower-bed. He presented it to Madame Magloire.

    "Here it is."
    "Well!" said she."Nothing in it!And the silver?"
    "Ah," returned the Bishop, "so it is the silver which troubles you? I don't know where it is."

    "Great, good God!It is stolen!That man who was here last night has stolen it."

    In a twinkling, with all the vivacity of an alert old woman, Madame Magloire had rushed to the oratory, entered the alcove, and returned to the Bishop.The Bishop had just bent down, and was sighing as he examined a plant of cochlearia des Guillons, which the basket had broken as it fell across the bed.He rose up at Madame Magloire's cry.

    "Monseigneur, the man is gone!The silver has been stolen!"
    As she uttered this exclamation, her eyes fell upon a corner of the garden, where traces of the wall having been scaled were visible. The coping of the wall had been torn away.

    "Stay! yonder is the way he went.He jumped over into Cochefilet Lane.Ah, the abomination!He has stolen our silver!"
    The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he raised his grave eyes, and said gently to Madame Magloire:--

    "And, in the first place, was that silver ours?"
    Madame Magloire was speechless.Another silence ensued; then the Bishop went on:--

    "Madame Magloire, I have for a long time detained that silver wrongfully. It belonged to the poor.Who was that man?A poor man, evidently."
    "Alas!Jesus!" returned Madame Magloire."It is not for my sake, nor for Mademoiselle's. It makes no difference to us.But it is for the sake of Monseigneur.What is Monseigneur to eat with now?"

    The Bishop gazed at her with an air of amazement.
    "Ah, come!Are there no such things as pewter forks and spoons?"
    Madame Magloire shrugged her shoulders.

    "pewter has an odor."
    "Iron forks and spoons, then."
    Madame Magloire made an expressive grimace.
    "Iron has a taste."
    "Very well," said the Bishop; "wooden ones then."

    A few moments later he was breakfasting at the very table at which Jean Valjean had sat on the previous evening.As he ate his breakfast, Monseigneur Welcome remarked gayly to his sister, who said nothing, and to Madame Magloire, who was grumbling under her breath, that one really does not need either fork or spoon, even of wood, in order to dip a bit of bread in a cup of milk.

    "A pretty idea, truly," said Madame Magloire to herself, as she went and came, "to take in a man like that! and to lodge him close to one's self!And how fortunate that he did nothing but steal! Ah, mon Dieu! it makes one shudder to think of it!"

    As the brother and sister were about to rise from the table, there came a knock at the door.
    "Come in," said the Bishop.

    The door opened.A singular and violent group made its appearance on the threshold.Three men were holding a fourth man by the collar. The three men were gendarmes; the other was Jean Valjean.
    A brigadier of gendarmes, who seemed to be in command of the group, was standing near the door.He entered and advanced to the Bishop, making a military salute.

    "Monseigneur--" said he.
    At this word, Jean Valjean, who was dejected and seemed overwhelmed, raised his head with an air of stupefaction.
    "Monseigneur!" he murmured."So he is not the cure?"
    "Silence!" said the gendarme."He is Monseigneur the Bishop."
    In the meantime, Monseigneur Bienvenu had advanced as quickly as his great age permitted.

    "Ah! here you are!" he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. "I am glad to see you.Well, but how is this?I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?"

    Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of.
    "Monseigneur," said the brigadier of gendarmes, "so what this man said is true, then?We came across him.He was walking like a man who is running away.We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this silver--"

    "And he told you," interposed the Bishop with a smile, "that it had been given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed the night?I see how the matter stands.And you have brought him back here?It is a mistake."
    "In that case," replied the brigadier, "we can let him go?"

    "Certainly," replied the Bishop.
    The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who recoiled.
    "Is it true that I am to be released?" he said, in an almost inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep.

    "Yes, thou art released; dost thou not understand?" said one of the gendarmes.
    "My friend," resumed the Bishop, "before you go, here are your candlesticks.Take them."

    He stepped to the chimney-piece, took the two silver candlesticks, and brought them to Jean Valjean.The two women looked on without uttering a word, without a gesture, without a look which could disconcert the Bishop.
    Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb.He took the two candlesticks mechanically, and with a bewildered air.

    "Now," said the Bishop, "go in peace.By the way, when you return, my friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always enter and depart through the street door.It is never fastened with anything but a latch, either by day or by night."

    Then, turning to the gendarmes:--
    "You may retire, gentlemen."
    The gendarmes retired.
    Jean Valjean was like a man on the point of fainting.
    The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice:--

    "Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man."
    Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, remained speechless.The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered them.He resumed with solemnity:--

    "Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God."

     第二天一早，卞福汝主教正在他的园子中散步。马格洛大娘慌慌张张地向他跑来。
    “我的主教，我的主教，”她喊着说，“大人可知道那只银器篮子在什么地方吗？”
    “知道的。”主教说。

    “耶稣上帝有灵！”她说。“我刚才还说它到什么地方去了呢。”主教刚在花坛脚下捡起了那篮子，把它交给马格洛大娘。“篮子在这儿。”
    “怎样？”她说。“里面一点东西也没有！那些银器呢？”“呀，”主教回答说，“您原来是问银器吗？我不知道在什么地方。”

    “大哉好上帝！给人偷去了！是昨天晚上那个人偷了的！”一转眼间，马格洛大娘已经用急躁老太婆的全部敏捷劲儿跑进祈祷室，穿进壁厢，又回到了主教那儿。

    主教正弯下腰去，悼惜一株被那篮子压折的秋海棠，那是篮子从花坛落到地下把它压折了的。主教听到马格洛大娘的叫声，又直起身来。
    “我的主教，那个人已经走了！银器也被偷去了。”她一面嚷，眼睛却盯在园子的一角上，那儿还看得出越墙的痕迹。
    墙上的垛子也被弄掉了一个。

    “您看！他是从那儿逃走的。他跳进了车网巷！呀！可耻的东西！他偷了我们的银器！”
    主教沉默了一阵，随后他睁开那双严肃的眼睛，柔声向马格洛大娘说：“首先，那些银器难道真是我们的吗？”马格洛大娘不敢说下去了。又是一阵沉寂，随后，主教继续说：“马格洛大娘，我占用那些银器已经很久了。那是属于穷人的。那个人是什么人呢？当然是个穷人了。”

    “耶稣，”马格洛大娘又说，“不是为了我，也不是为了姑娘，我们是不要紧的。但我是为了我的主教着想。我的主教现在用什么东西盛饭菜呢？”主教露出一副惊奇的神情瞧着她。
    “呀！这话怎讲！我们不是有锡器吗？”

    马格洛大娘耸了耸肩。
    “锡器有一股臭气。”
    “那么，铁器也可以。”马格洛大娘做出一副怪样子：“铁器有一股怪味。”

    “那么，”主教说，“用木器就是了。”过了一阵，他坐在昨晚冉阿让坐过的那张桌子边用早餐。卞福汝主教一面吃，一面高高兴兴地叫他那哑口无言的妹妹和叽哩咕噜的马格洛大娘注意，他把一块面包浸在牛奶里，连木匙和木叉也都不用。
    “真想不到！”马格洛大娘边走来走去，边自言自语，“招待这样一个人，并且让他睡在自己的旁边！幸而他只偷了一点东西！我的上帝！想想都使人寒毛直竖。”

    正在兄妹俩要离开桌子时，有人敲门。
    “请进。”主教说。门开了，一群凶巴巴的陌生人出现在门边。三个人揪着另一个人的衣领。那三个人是警察，另一个就是冉阿让。一个警察队长，看上去是率领那群人的，开始时站在门边。他进来后，行了个军礼，向主教走去。

    “我的主教??”他说。冉阿让先头好象是垂头丧气的，听了这称呼，忽然抬起头来，露出大吃一惊的神色。
    “我的主教，”他低声说，“那么，他不是本堂神甫了??”“不准开口！”一个警察说，“这是主教先生。”
    但是卞福汝主教尽他的高年所允许的速度迎上去。

    “呀！您来了！”他望着冉阿让大声说，“我真高兴看见您。怎么！那一对烛台，我也送给您了，那和其它的东西一样，都是银的，您可以变卖二百法郎。您为什么没有把那对烛台和餐具一同带去呢？”

    冉阿让睁圆了眼睛，看着那位年迈可敬的主教。他的面色，绝无一 种人类文字可以表现得出来。

    “我的主教，”警察队长说，“难道这人说的话是真的吗？我们碰到了他。他走路的样子好象是个想逃跑的人。我们就把他拦下来看看。他拿着这些银器??”“他还向你们说过，”主教笑容可掬地岔着说，“这些银器是一个神甫老头儿给他的，他还在他家里住了一夜。我知道这是怎么回事。你们又把他带回到此地。对吗？你们误会了。”“既是这样，”队长说，“我们可以把他放走吗？”“当然。”主教回答说。

    警察放了冉阿让，他向后退了几步。
    “你们真让我走吗？”他说，仿佛是在梦中，字音也差点没吐清楚。
    “是的，我们让你走，你耳朵聋了吗？”一个警察说。“我的朋友，”主教又说，“您在走之前，不妨把您的那对烛台拿去。”

    他走到壁炉边，拿了那两个银烛台，送给冉阿让。那两个妇人没有说一个字、做一个手势或露一点神气去阻扰主教，她们看着他行动。冉阿让全身发抖。他机械地接了那两个烛台，完全不知所措。“现在，”主教说，“您可以放心走了。呀！还有一件事，我的朋友，您再来时，不必走园子里。您随时都可以从街上的那扇门进出。白天和夜里，它都只上一个活闩。”

    他转过去朝着那些警察：
    “先生们，你们可以回去了。”那些警察走了。
    这时的冉阿让就象是个要昏厥的人。主教走到他身边，低声向他说：“不要忘记，永远不要忘记您允诺过我，您用这些银子是为了成为一个诚实的人。”

    冉阿让绝对回忆不起他曾允诺过什么话，他呆着无法开口。主教说那些话是一字一字叮嘱的，他又郑重地说：“冉阿让，我的兄弟，您现在已不是恶那一方面的人了，您是在善的一面了。我赎的是您的灵魂，我把它从黑暗的思想和自暴自弃的精神里救出来，交还给上帝。”

     Jean Valjean left the town as though he were fleeing from it. He set out at a very hasty pace through the fields, taking whatever roads and paths presented themselves to him, without perceiving that he was incessantly retracing his steps.He wandered thus the whole morning, without having eaten anything and without feeling hungry. He was the prey of a throng of novel sensations.He was conscious of a sort of rage; he did not know against whom it was directed. He could not have told whether he was touched or humiliated. There came over him at moments a strange emotion which he resisted and to which he opposed the hardness acquired during the last twenty years of his life.This state of mind fatigued him.He perceived with dismay that the sort of frightful calm which the injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him was giving way within him. He asked himself what would replace this.At times he would have actually preferred to be in prison with the gendarmes, and that things should not have happened in this way; it would have agitated him less. Although the season was tolerably far advanced, there were still a few late flowers in the hedge-rows here and there, whose odor as he passed through them in his march recalled to him memories of his childhood.These memories were almost intolerable to him, it was so long since they had recurred to him.

     Unutterable thoughts assembled within him in this manner all day long.

     As the sun declined to its setting, casting long shadows athwart the soil from every pebble, Jean Valjean sat down behind a bush upon a large ruddy plain, which was absolutely deserted.There was nothing on the horizon except the Alps.Not even the spire of a distant village. Jean Valjean might have been three leagues distant from D---- A path which intersected the plain passed a few paces from the bush.

     In the middle of this meditation, which would have contributed not a little to render his rags terrifying to any one who might have encountered him, a joyous sound became audible.
     He turned his head and saw a little Savoyard, about ten years of age, coming up the path and singing, his hurdy-gurdy on his hip, and his marmot-box on his back,

     One of those gay and gentle children, who go from land to land affording a view of their knees through the holes in their trousers.
     Without stopping his song, the lad halted in his march from time to time, and played at knuckle-bones with some coins which he had in his hand--his whole fortune, probably.

     Among this money there was one forty-sou piece.
     The child halted beside the bush, without perceiving Jean Valjean, and tossed up his handful of sous, which, up to that time, he had caught with a good deal of adroitness on the back of his hand.

     This time the forty-sou piece escaped him, and went rolling towards the brushwood until it reached Jean Valjean.
     Jean Valjean set his foot upon it.
     In the meantime, the child had looked after his coin and had caught sight of him.

     He showed no astonishment, but walked straight up to the man.

     The spot was absolutely solitary.As far as the eye could see there was not a person on the plain or on the path.The only sound was the tiny, feeble cries of a flock of birds of passage, which was traversing the heavens at an immense height.The child was standing with his back to the sun, which cast threads of gold in his hair and empurpled with its blood-red gleam the savage face of Jean Valjean.

     "Sir," said the little Savoyard, with that childish confidence which is composed of ignorance and innocence, "my money."
     "What is your name?" said Jean Valjean.
     "Little Gervais, sir."
     "Go away," said Jean Valjean.
     "Sir," resumed the child, "give me back my money."

     Jean Valjean dropped his head, and made no reply.
     The child began again, "My money, sir."
     Jean Valjean's eyes remained fixed on the earth.
     "My piece of money!" cried the child, "my white piece! my silver!"

     It seemed as though Jean Valjean did not hear him.The child grasped him by the collar of his blouse and shook him.At the same time he made an effort to displace the big iron-shod shoe which rested on his treasure.
     "I want my piece of money! my piece of forty sous!"

     The child wept.Jean Valjean raised his head.He still remained seated.His eyes were troubled.He gazed at the child, in a sort of amazement, then he stretched out his hand towards his cudgel and cried in a terrible voice, "Who's there?"
     "I, sir," replied the child."Little Gervais!I!Give me back my forty sous, if you please!Take your foot away, sir, if you please!"

     Then irritated, though he was so small, and becoming almost menacing:--
     "Come now, will you take your foot away?Take your foot away, or we'll see!"
     "Ah!It's still you!" said Jean Valjean, and rising abruptly to his feet, his foot still resting on the silver piece, he added:--

     "Will you take yourself off!"
     The frightened child looked at him, then began to tremble from head to foot, and after a few moments of stupor he set out, running at the top of his speed, without daring to turn his neck or to utter a cry.

     Nevertheless, lack of breath forced him to halt after a certain distance, and Jean Valjean heard him sobbing, in the midst of his own revery.
At the end of a few moments the child had disappeared.
     The sun had set.
     The shadows were descending around Jean Valjean.He had eaten nothing all day; it is probable that he was feverish.

     He had remained standing and had not changed his attitude after the child's flight.The breath heaved his chest at long and irregular intervals.His gaze, fixed ten or twelve paces in front of him, seemed to be scrutinizing with profound attention the shape of an ancient fragment of blue earthenware which had fallen in the grass. All at once he shivered; he had just begun to feel the chill of evening.

     He settled his cap more firmly on his brow, sought mechanically to cross and button his blouse, advanced a step and stopped to pick up his cudgel.

     At that moment he caught sight of the forty-sou piece, which his foot had half ground into the earth, and which was shining among the pebbles.It was as though he had received a galvanic shock. "What is this?" he muttered between his teeth.He recoiled three paces, then halted, without being able to detach his gaze from the spot which his foot had trodden but an instant before, as though the thing which lay glittering there in the gloom had been an open eye riveted upon him.

     At the expiration of a few moments he darted convulsively towards the silver coin, seized it, and straightened himself up again and began to gaze afar off over the plain, at the same time casting his eyes towards all points of the horizon, as he stood there erect and shivering, like a terrified wild animal which is seeking refuge.

     He saw nothing.Night was falling, the plain was cold and vague, great banks of violet haze were rising in the gleam of the twilight.
     He said, "Ah!" and set out rapidly in the direction in which the child had disappeared.After about thirty paces he paused, looked about him and saw nothing.

     Then he shouted with all his might:--
     "Little Gervais!Little Gervais!"
     He paused and waited.
     There was no reply.

     The landscape was gloomy and deserted.He was encompassed by space. There was nothing around him but an obscurity in which his gaze was lost, and a silence which engulfed his voice.
     An icy north wind was blowing, and imparted to things around him a sort of lugubrious life.The bushes shook their thin little arms with incredible fury.One would have said that they were threatening and pursuing some one.

     He set out on his march again, then he began to run; and from time to time he halted and shouted into that solitude, with a voice which was the most formidable and the most disconsolate that it was possible to hear, "Little Gervais!Little Gervais!"
     Assuredly, if the child had heard him, he would have been alarmed and would have taken good care not to show himself.But the child was no doubt already far away.

     He encountered a priest on horseback.He stepped up to him and said:--
     "Monsieur le Cure, have you seen a child pass?"
     "No," said the priest.
     "One named Little Gervais?"
     "I have seen no one."

     He drew two five-franc pieces from his money-bag and handed them to the priest.
     "Monsieur le Cure, this is for your poor people.Monsieur le Cure, he was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and a hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?"

     "I have not seen him."
     "Little Gervais?There are no villages here?Can you tell me?"
     "If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such persons pass through these parts.We know nothing of them."
     Jean Valjean seized two more coins of five francs each with violence, and gave them to the priest.

     "For your poor," he said.
     Then he added, wildly:--
     "Monsieur l'Abbe, have me arrested.I am a thief."

     The priest put spurs to his horse and fled in haste, much alarmed.
     Jean Valjean set out on a run, in the direction which he had first taken.
I
     n this way he traversed a tolerably long distance, gazing, calling, shouting, but he met no one.Two or three times he ran across the plain towards something which conveyed to him the effect of a human being reclining or crouching down; it turned out to be nothing but brushwood or rocks nearly on a level with the earth. At length, at a spot where three paths intersected each other, he stopped.The moon had risen.He sent his gaze into the distance and shouted for the last time, "Little Gervais!Little Gervais! Little Gervais!"His shout died away in the mist, without even awakening an echo.He murmured yet once more, "Little Gervais!" but in a feeble and almost inarticulate voice.It was his last effort; his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an invisible power had suddenly overwhelmed him with the weight of his evil conscience; he fell exhausted, on a large stone, his fists clenched in his hair and his face on his knees, and he cried, "I am a wretch!"

     Then his heart burst, and he began to cry.It was the first time that he had wept in nineteen years.

     When Jean Valjean left the Bishop's house, he was, as we have seen, quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto. He could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the old man."You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your soul.I take it away from the spirit of perversity; I give it to the good God."

     This recurred to his mind unceasingly.To this celestial kindness he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us. He was indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest assault and the most formidable attack which had moved him yet; that his obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency; that if he yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man.

     In the presence of these lights, he proceeded like a man who is intoxicated.As he walked thus with haggard eyes, did he have a distinct perception of what might result to him from his adventure at D----? Did he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or importune the spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the best of men, he would be the worst; that it behooved him now, so to speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; that if he wished to become good be must become an angel; that if he wished to remain evil, he must become a monster?

     Here, again, some questions must be put, which we have already put to ourselves elsewhere:did he catch some shadow of all this in his thought, in a confused way?Misfortune certainly, as we have said, does form the education of the intelligence; nevertheless, it is doubtful whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have here indicated.If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught glimpses of, rather than saw them, and they only succeeded in throwing him into an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion.On emerging from that black and deformed thing which is called the galleys, the Bishop had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on emerging from the dark.The future life, the possible life which offered itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with tremors and anxiety.He no longer knew where he really was.Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

     That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to him and had not touched him.

     In this state of mind he had encountered little Gervais, and had robbed him of his forty sous.Why?He certainly could not have explained it; was this the last effect and the supreme effort, as it were, of the evil thoughts which he had brought away from the galleys,-- a remnant of impulse, a result of what is called in statics, acquired force?It was that, and it was also, perhaps, even less than that.Let us say it simply, it was not he who stole; it was not the man; it was the beast, who, by habit and instinct, had simply placed his foot upon that money, while the intelligence was struggling amid so many novel and hitherto unheard-of thoughts besetting it.

     When intelligence re-awakened and beheld that action of the brute, Jean Valjean recoiled with anguish and uttered a cry of terror.
     It was because,--strange phenomenon, and one which was possible only in the situation in which he found himself,--in stealing the money from that child, he had done a thing of which he was no longer capable.

     However that may be, this last evil action had a decisive effect on him; it abruptly traversed that chaos which he bore in his mind, and dispersed it, placed on one side the thick obscurity, and on the other the light, and acted on his soul, in the state in which it then was, as certain chemical reagents act upon a troubled mixture by precipitating one element and clarifying the other.

     First of all, even before examining himself and reflecting, all bewildered, like one who seeks to save himself, he tried to find the child in order to return his money to him; then, when he recognized the fact that this was impossible, he halted in despair. At the moment when he exclaimed "I am a wretch!" he had just perceived what he was, and he was already separated from himself to such a degree, that he seemed to himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom, and as if he had, there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galley-convict, Jean Valjean, cudgel in hand, his blouse on his hips, his knapsack filled with stolen objects on his back, with his resolute and gloomy visage, with his thoughts filled with abominable projects.

     Excess of unhappiness had, as we have remarked, made him in some sort a visionary.This, then, was in the nature of a vision. He actually saw that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by him.

     His brain was going through one of those violent and yet perfectly calm moments in which revery is so profound that it absorbs reality. One no longer beholds the object which one has before one, and one sees, as though apart from one's self, the figures which one has in one's own mind.

     Thus he contemplated himself, so to speak, face to face, and at the same time, athwart this hallucination, he perceived in a mysterious depth a sort of light which he at first took for a torch.On scrutinizing this light which appeared to his conscience with more attention, he recognized the fact that it possessed a human form and that this torch was the Bishop.

     His conscience weighed in turn these two men thus placed before it,-- the Bishop and Jean Valjean.Nothing less than the first was required to soften the second.By one of those singular effects, which are peculiar to this sort of ecstasies, in proportion as his revery continued, as the Bishop grew great and resplendent in his eyes, so did Jean Valjean grow less and vanish.After a certain time he was no longer anything more than a shade.All at once he disappeared. The Bishop alone remained; he filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance.

     Jean Valjean wept for a long time.He wept burning tears, he sobbed with more weakness than a woman, with more fright than a child.

     As he wept, daylight penetrated more and more clearly into his soul; an extraordinary light; a light at once ravishing and terrible. His past life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness, his internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold plans of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop's, the last thing that he had done, that theft of forty sous from a child, a crime all the more cowardly, and all the more monstrous since it had come after the Bishop's pardon,--all this recurred to his mind and appeared clearly to him, but with a clearness which he had never hitherto witnessed.He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it seemed frightful to him. In the meantime a gentle light rested over this life and this soul. It seemed to him that he beheld Satan by the light of paradise.

     How many hours did he weep thus?What did he do after he had wept? Whither did he go!No one ever knew.The only thing which seems to be authenticated is that that same night the carrier who served Grenoble at that epoch, and who arrived at D---- about three o'clock in the morning, saw, as he traversed the street in which the Bishop's residence was situated, a man in the attitude of prayer, kneeling on the pavement in the shadow, in front of the door of Monseigneur Welcome.

     冉阿让逃跑一样的出了城。他在田野中仓惶乱窜，不问大路小路，碰着就走，也不觉得他老在原处兜圈子。他那样瞎跑了一早晨，没吃东西，也不知道饿。他被一大堆新的感触抑制住了。他觉得自己怒不可遏，却又不知道怒从何来。他说不出他是受了感动还是受了侮辱。有时他觉得心头有一种奇特的柔和滋味，他却和它抗拒，拿了他过去二十年中立志顽抗到底的心情来抗拒。这种情形使他感到疲乏。过去使他受苦的那种不公平的处罚，早已使他决心为恶，现在他觉得那种决心动摇了，反而感到不安。他问自己：以后将用什么志愿来代替那种决心？有时，他的确认为如果没有这些经过的话，他仍能和警察相处狱中，他也许还高兴些，他心中也就可以少起一些波动。当时虽然已近岁暮，可是在青树篱中，三三两两，偶然也还有几朵迟开的花，他闻到花香，触起了童年的许多往事。那些往事对他几乎是不堪回首的，他已有那么多年不再去想它了。

    因此，在那一天，有很多各种各样莫名其妙的感触一齐涌上了他的心头。
    正当落日西沉、地面上最小的石子也拖着细长的影子之际，冉阿让坐在一片绝对荒凉的红土平原中的一丛荆棘后面。远处，只望见阿尔卑斯山。连远村的钟楼也望不见一个。冉阿让离开迪涅城大概已有三法里了。在离开荆棘几步的地方，横着一条穿过平原的小路。

    他正在胡思乱想，当时如果有人走来，见了他那种神情，必然会感到他那身破烂衣服格外可怕。正在那时，他忽然听到一阵欢快的声音。他转过头，看见一个十岁左右的穷孩子沿着小路走来，嘴里唱着歌，腰间有一只摇琴，背上有一只田鼠笼子，这是一个那种嬉皮笑脸、四乡游荡、从裤腿窟窿里露出膝头的孩子中的一个。那孩子一面唱，一面又不时停下，拿着手中的几个钱，做“抓子儿”游戏，那几个钱，大概就是他的全部财产了。里面有一个值四十苏的钱。

    孩子停留在那丛荆棘旁边，没有看见冉阿让，把他的一把钱都抛了起来，他相当灵巧，每次都个个接在手背上。可是这一次他那个值四十 苏的钱落了空，向那丛荆棘滚了去，滚到了冉阿让的脚边。
    冉阿让一脚踏在上面。
    可是那孩子的眼睛早紧跟着那个钱，他看见冉阿让用脚踏着它。他一点也不惊慌，直向那人走去。那是一处绝对没有人的地方。在视线所及的范围内，绝没有一个人在平原和小路上。他们听见一群掠空而过的飞鸟，从高空送来微弱的鸣声。那孩子背朝太阳，日光把他的头发照成缕缕金丝，用血红的光把冉阿让凶悍的脸照成了紫色。

    “先生，”那穷孩子用蒙昧和天真合成的赤子之心说，“我的钱呢？”
    “你叫什么？”冉阿让说。
    “小瑞尔威，先生。”“滚！”冉阿让说。
    “先生，”那孩子又说，“请您把我的那个钱还我。”冉阿让低下头，不答话。
    那孩子再说：
    “我的钱，先生！”冉阿让的眼睛仍旧盯在地上。

    “我的钱！”那孩子喊起来，“我的白角子！我的银钱！”冉阿让好象全没听见。那孩子抓住他的布衫领，推他。同时使劲推开那只压在他的宝贝上面的铁钉鞋。
    “我要我的钱！我要我值四十个苏的钱！”孩子哭起来了。冉阿让抬起头，仍旧坐着不动。他眼睛的神色是迷糊不清的。他望着那孩子有点感到惊奇，随后，他伸手到放棍子的地方，大声喊道：“谁在那儿？”

    “是我，先生，”那孩子回答，“小瑞尔威。我！我！请您把我的四十个苏还我！把您的脚拿开，先生，求求您！”他年纪虽小，却动了火，几乎有要硬干的神气：“哈！您究竟拿不拿开您的脚？快拿开您的脚！听见了没有？”“呀！又是你！”冉阿让说。
    随后，他忽然站起来，脚仍旧踏在银币上，接着说：“你究竟走不走！”

    那孩子吓坏了，望着他，随后从头到脚哆嗦起来，发了一会呆，逃了，他拚命跑，不敢回头，也不敢叫。但他跑了一程过后，喘不过气了，只好停下来。冉阿让在混乱的心情中听到了他的哭声。
    过一会，那孩子不见了。太阳也掉下去了。

    黑暗慢慢笼罩了冉阿让的四周。他整天没吃东西，他也许正在发寒热。他仍旧立着，从那孩子逃走以后，他还没有改变他那姿势。他的呼吸，忽长忽促，胸膛随着起伏。他的眼睛盯在他前面一二十步的地方，仿佛在专心研究野草中的一块碎蓝瓷片的形状。忽然，他哆嗦了一下，此刻他才感到了夜寒。

    他重新把他的鸭舌帽压紧在额头上，机械地动手去把他的布衫拉拢，扣上，走了一步，弯下腰去，从地上拾起他的棍子。这时，他忽然看见了那个值四十个苏的钱，他的脚已把它半埋在土中了，它在石子上发出闪光。

    这一下好象是触电似的，“这是什么东西？”他咬紧牙齿说。他向后退了三步，停下来，无法把他的视线从刚才他脚踏着的那一点移开，在黑暗里闪光的那件东西，仿佛是一只望着他的大眼睛。几分钟之后，他慌忙向那银币猛扑过去，捏住它，立起身来，向平原的远方望去，把目光投向天边四处，站着发抖，就象一只受惊以后要找地方藏身的猛兽。他什么也望不见。天黑了，平原一片苍凉。紫色的浓雾正在黄昏的微光中腾起。他说了声“呀”，急忙朝那孩子逃跑的方向走去。走了百来步以后，他停下来，向前望去，但什么也看不见。于是他使浑身力气，喊道：“小瑞尔威！小瑞尔威！”他住口细听。没人回答。

    那旷野是荒凉凄黯的。四周一望无际，全都是荒地。除了那望不穿的黑影和吼不破的寂静之外，一无所有。一阵冷峭的北风吹来，使他四周的东西都呈现出愁惨的情景。几棵矮树，摇着枯枝，带有一种匪夷所思的愤恨，仿佛要恐吓追扑什么人一 样。
    他再往前走，随后又跑起来，跑跑停停，在那寂寥的原野上，吼出他那无比凄惨惊人的声音：“小瑞尔威！小瑞尔威！”如果那孩子听见了，也一定会害怕，更要好好地躲起来。不过那孩子毫无疑问已经走远了。他遇见一个骑马的神甫。他走到他身边，向他说：“神甫先生，您看见一个孩子走过去吗？”

    “没有。”神甫说。
    “一个叫小瑞尔威的？”
    “我谁也没看见。”他从他钱袋里取出两枚五法郎的钱，交给神甫。
    “神甫先生，这是给您的穷人的。神甫先生，他是一个十岁左右的孩子，他有一只四鼠笼子，我想，还有一把摇琴。他是向那个方向走去的。他是一个通烟囱的穷孩子，您知道吗？”“我确实没有看见。”

    “小瑞尔威？他不是这村子里的吗？您能告诉我吗？”“如果他确是象您那么说的，我的朋友，那就是一个从别的地方来的孩子了。他们经过这里，却不会有人认得他们。”冉阿让另又拿出两个五法郎的钱交给神甫。
    “给您的穷人。”他说。
    随后他又迷乱地说：

    “教士先生，您去叫人来捉我吧。我是一个窃贼。”神甫踢动双腿，催马前进，魂飞天外似的逃了。
    冉阿让又朝着他先头选定的方向跑去。

    他那样走了许多路，张望，叫喊，呼号，但是再也没有碰见一个人。他在那原野里，看见有一点象是卧着或蹲着的东西，他就跑过去，如此前后有两三次，他见到的都只是一些野草，或是露在地面上的石头，最后，他走到一个三岔路口，停了下来。月亮出来了。他张望远处，作了最后一次呼唤：“小瑞尔威！小瑞尔威！小瑞尔威！”他的呼声在暮霭中消隐，连回响也没有了。他嘴里还念着：“小瑞尔威！”但是声音微弱，几乎不成字音。那是他最后的努力，他的膝弯忽然曲下，仿佛他良心上的负担已成了一种无形的压力，突然把他压倒了一样，他精疲力竭，倒在一块大石头上，两手揪着头发，脸躲在膝头中间，他喊道：“我是一个无赖！”他的心碎了，他哭了出来，那是他第一次流泪。

    冉阿让从主教家里出来后，我们看得出来，他已完全摆脱了从前的那种思想。不过他一时还不能分辨自己的心情。他对那个老人的仁言懿行还强自抗拒。“您允诺了我做诚实人。我赎买了您的灵魂，我把它从污秽当中救出来交给慈悲的上帝。”这些话不停地回到他的脑子里。他用自己的傲气来同那种至高无上的仁德对抗，傲气真是我们心中的罪恶堡垒。他仿佛觉得，神甫的原宥是使他回心转意的一种最大的压迫和最凶猛的攻势，如果他对那次恩德还要抵抗，那他就会死硬到底，永不回 头；如果他屈服，他就应当放弃这许多年来别人种在他心上、也是他自负得意的那种仇恨。那一次是他的胜败关头，那种斗争，那种关系着全盘胜负的激烈斗争，已在他自身的凶恶和那人的慈善之间展开了。

    他怀着一种一知半解的心情，醉汉一样地往前走着。当他那样恍惚迷离往前走时，他对这次在迪涅的意外遭遇带给他的后果是否有一种明确的认识呢？在人生的某些时刻，常有一种神秘的微音来惊觉或搅扰我们的心神，他是否也听到了这种微音呢？是否有种声音在他的耳边说，他正在经历他生命中最严重的一刻呢？他已没有折衷的余地，此后他如果不做最好的人，就会做最恶的人，现在他应当超过主教（不妨这样说），否则就会堕落得连苦役犯也不如，如果他情愿为善，就应当做天使，如果他甘心为恶，就一定做恶魔。

    在此地，我们应当再提出我们曾在别处提出过的那些问题，这一切在他的思想上是否多少发生了一点影响呢？当然，我们曾经说过，艰苦的生活能教育人，能启发人，但是以冉阿让那种水平，他是否能分析我们在此地指出的这一切，却是一个疑问，如果他对那些思想能有所体会，那也仅仅是一知半解，他一定看不清楚，并且那些思想也只能使他堕入一种烦恼，使他感到难堪，几乎觉得痛苦。他从所谓牢狱的那种畸形而黑暗的东西中出来后，主教已伤及了他的灵魂，正如一种太强烈的光会伤及他那双刚从黑暗中出来的眼睛一样。将来的生活，摆在他眼前的那种永远纯洁、光彩、完全可能实现的生活，使他惶惑颤栗。他确实不知所措。正如一只骤见日出的枭鸟一样，这个罪犯也因见了美德而目眩，并且几近失明。

    有一点能肯定，并且是他自己也相信的，那就是他已不再是从前那个人了，他的心完全变了，他已没有能力再去做主教不曾和他谈到也不曾触及的那些事了。

    在这样的思想状况下，他遇到了小瑞尔威，抢了他的四十个苏。那是为什么？他一定无法说明，难道这是他从监牢里带来的那种恶念的最后影响，好比临终的一振，冲动的余力，力学里所谓“惯性”的结果吗？是的。也许还不完全是。我们简单地说说，抢东西的并不是他，并不是他这个人，而是那只兽，当时他心里有那么多初次尝到的苦惑，正当他作思想斗争时，那只兽，由于习惯和本能作用，便不自觉地把脚踏在那钱上了。等到心智清醒以后，看见了那种兽类的行为，冉阿让才感到痛心，向后退却，并且惊骇得大叫起来。

    抢那孩子的钱，那已不是他能下得了手的事，那次的异常现象只是在他当时的思想状况下才有发生的可能。

    无论如何，这最后一次恶劣的行为对他起了一种决定性的作用。这次的恶劣行为突然穿过他的混乱思想并得到澄清，把黑暗的障碍放在一 边，光明置放在另一边，并且按照他当时的思想水平，影响他的心灵，正如某些化学反应体对一种混浊的混合物发生作用时的情况一样，它能使一种原素沉淀，另一种澄清。

    最初，在自我检查和思考之前，他登时心慌意乱，正象一个亡命者，狠命追赶，要找到那个孩子把钱还给他；后来等到他明白已经太迟，不可能追上时，他才大失所望，停了下来。当他喊着“我是一个无赖”时，他才看出自己究竟是怎样一个人，在那时，他已离开他自己，仿佛感到他自己只是一个鬼，并且看见那个有肉有骨、形相丑恶的苦役犯冉阿让就站在他前面，手里拿着棍，腰里转着布衫，背上的布袋里装满了偷来的东西，面目果决而忧郁，脑子里充满卑劣的诡计。

    我们已指出过，过分的痛苦使他变成了一个富于幻想的人，那正好象是一种幻境，他确实看见了冉阿让的那副凶恶面孔出现在他前面。他几乎要问他自己那个人是谁，并且对他产生了强烈的反感。
    人在幻想中，有时会显得沉静得可怕，继而又强烈地激动起来，惑于幻想的人，往往无视现实，冉阿让当时的情况，正是那样。他看见自己周围的东西，却仿佛看见心里的人物出现在自己的前面。

    我们可以这样说，他正望着他自己，面面相觑，并且同时通过那种幻景，在一种神妙莫测的深远处看见一点微光，起初他还以为是什么火炬，等到他再仔细去看那一点显现在他良心上的光时，他才看出那火炬似的光具有人形，并且就是那位主教。

    他的良心一再地研究那样站在他面前的两个人，主教和冉阿让。要驯服第二个就非得第一个不行。由于那种痴望所特具的奇异效力，他的幻想延续越久，主教的形象也越高大，越在他眼前显得光芒四射，冉阿让却越来越小，也越来越模糊。到某一时刻他已只是个影子。忽然一下，他完全消失了。只剩下了那个主教。

    他让烂灿的光辉，充实了那个可怜人的全部心灵。
    冉阿让哭了很久，淌着热泪，泣不成声，哭得比妇女更柔弱，比孩子更慌乱。

    正在他哭时，光明逐渐在他脑子里出现了，一种奇特的光，一种极其可爱同时又极其可怕的光。他已往的生活，最初的过失，长期的赎罪，外貌的粗俗，内心的顽强，准备在出狱后痛痛快快报复一番的种种打算，例如在主教家里干的事，他最后干的事，抢了那孩子的四十个苏的那一 次罪行，并且这次罪行是犯在获得主教的宥免以后，那就更为无耻，更为丑恶；凡此种种都回到了他脑子里，清清楚楚地显现出来，那种光的明亮是他生平从未见过的。他回顾他的生活，丑恶已极，他的心灵，卑鄙不堪。但是在那种生活和心灵上面有一片平和的光。他好象是在天堂的光里看见了魔鬼。

    他那样哭了多少时间呢？哭过以后，他做了些什么呢？他到什么地方去了呢？从来没有人知道。但有一件事似乎是可靠的，就是在那天晚上，有辆去格勒诺布尔的车子，在早晨三点左右到了迪涅，在经过主教院街时，车夫曾看见一个人双膝跪在卞福汝主教大门外的路旁，就象是在黑暗里祈祷。

     1817 is the year which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal assurance which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his reign. It is the year in which M. Bruguiere de Sorsum was celebrated. All the hairdressers' shops, hoping for powder and the return of the royal bird, were besmeared with azure and decked with fleurs-de-lys. It was the candid time at which Count Lynch sat every Sunday as church-warden in the church-warden's pew of Saint-Germain-des-pres, in his costume of a peer of France, with his red ribbon and his long nose and the majesty of profile peculiar to a man who has performed a brilliant action.The brilliant action performed by M. Lynch was this:being mayor of Bordeaux, on the 12th of March, 1814, he had surrendered the city a little too promptly to M. the Duke d'Angouleme. Hence his peerage.In 1817 fashion swallowed up little boys of from four to six years of age in vast caps of morocco leather with ear-tabs resembling Esquimaux mitres. The French army was dressed in white, after the mode of the Austrian; the regiments were called legions; instead of numbers they bore the names of departments; Napoleon was at St. Helena; and since England refused him green cloth, he was having his old coats turned. In 1817 pelligrini sang; Mademoiselle Bigottini danced; potier reigned; Odry did not yet exist.Madame Saqui had succeeded to Forioso. There were still prussians in France.M. Delalot was a personage. Legitimacy had just asserted itself by cutting off the hand, then the head, of pleignier, of Carbonneau, and of Tolleron. The prince de Talleyrand, grand chamberlain, and the Abbe Louis, appointed minister of finance, laughed as they looked at each other, with the laugh of the two augurs; both of them had celebrated, on the 14th of July, 1790, the mass of federation in the Champ de Mars; Talleyrand had said it as bishop, Louis had served it in the capacity of deacon.In 1817, in the side-alleys of this same Champ de Mars, two great cylinders of wood might have been seen lying in the rain, rotting amid the grass, painted blue, with traces of eagles and bees, from which the gilding was falling.These were the columns which two years before had upheld the Emperor's platform in the Champ de Mai. They were blackened here and there with the scorches of the bivouac of Austrians encamped near Gros-Caillou. Two or three of these columns had disappeared in these bivouac fires, and had warmed the large hands of the Imperial troops.The Field of May had this remarkable point:that it had been held in the month of June and in the Field of March (Mars). In this year, 1817, two things were popular:the Voltaire-Touquet and the snuff-box a la Charter. The most recent parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun, who had thrown his brother's head into the fountain of the Flower-Market.

     They had begun to feel anxious at the Naval Department, on account of the lack of news from that fatal frigate, The Medusa, which was destined to cover Chaumareix with infamy and Gericault with glory. Colonel Selves was going to Egypt to become Soliman-pasha. The palace of Thermes, in the Rue de La Harpe, served as a shop for a cooper. On the platform of the octagonal tower of the Hotel de Cluny, the little shed of boards, which had served as an observatory to Messier, the naval astronomer under Louis XVI., was still to be seen. The Duchesse de Duras read to three or four friends her unpublished Ourika, in her boudoir furnished by X. in sky-blue satin.The N's were scratched off the Louvre.The bridge of Austerlitz had abdicated, and was entitled the bridge of the King's Garden (du Jardin du Roi), a double enigma, which disguised the bridge of Austerlitz and the Jardin des plantes at one stroke.Louis XVIII., much preoccupied while annotating Horace with the corner of his finger-nail, heroes who have become emperors, and makers of wooden shoes who have become dauphins, had two anxieties,--Napoleon and Mathurin Bruneau. The French Academy had given for its prize subject, The Happiness procured through Study.M. Bellart was officially eloquent. In his shadow could be seen germinating that future advocate-general of Broe, dedicated to the sarcasms of paul-Louis Courier. There was a false Chateaubriand, named Marchangy, in the interim, until there should be a false Marchangy, named d'Arlincourt. Claire d'Albe and Malek-Adel were masterpieces; Madame Cottin was proclaimed the chief writer of the epoch.The Institute had the academician, Napoleon Bonaparte, stricken from its list of members.A royal ordinance erected Angouleme into a naval school; for the Duc d'Angouleme, being lord high admiral, it was evident that the city of Angouleme had all the qualities of a seaport; otherwise the monarchical principle would have received a wound. In the Council of Ministers the question was agitated whether vignettes representing slack-rope performances, which adorned Franconi's advertising posters, and which attracted throngs of street urchins, should be tolerated.M. paer, the author of Agnese, a good sort of fellow, with a square face and a wart on his cheek, directed the little private concerts of the Marquise de Sasenaye in the Rue Ville l'Eveque. All the young girls were singing the Hermit of Saint-Avelle, with words by Edmond Geraud.The Yellow Dwarf was transferred into Mirror.The Cafe Lemblin stood up for the Emperor, against the Cafe Valois, which upheld the Bourbons. The Duc de Berri, already surveyed from the shadow by Louvel, had just been married to a princess of Sicily.Madame de Stael had died a year previously.The body-guard hissed Mademoiselle Mars. The grand newspapers were all very small.Their form was restricted, but their liberty was great.The Constitutionnel was constitutional. La Minerve called Chateaubriand Chateaubriant.That t made the good middle-class people laugh heartily at the expense of the great writer. In journals which sold themselves, prostituted journalists, insulted the exiles of 1815.David had no longer any talent, Arnault had no longer any wit, Carnot was no longer honest, Soult had won no battles; it is true that Napoleon had no longer any genius. No one is ignorant of the fact that letters sent to an exile by post very rarely reached him, as the police made it their religious duty to intercept them.This is no new fact; Descartes complained of it in his exile.Now David, having, in a Belgian publication, shown some displeasure at not receiving letters which had been written to him, it struck the royalist journals as amusing; and they derided the prescribed man well on this occasion. What separated two men more than an abyss was to say, the regicides, or to say the voters; to say the enemies, or to say the allies; to say Napoleon, or to say Buonaparte.All sensible people were agreed that the era of revolution had been closed forever by King Louis XVIII., surnamed "The Immortal Author of the Charter." On the platform of the pont-Neuf, the word Redivivus was carved on the pedestal that awaited the statue of Henry IV.M. piet, in the Rue Therese, No. 4, was making the rough draft of his privy assembly to consolidate the monarchy.The leaders of the Right said at grave conjunctures, "We must write to Bacot."MM.Canuel, O'Mahoney, and De Chappedelaine were preparing the sketch, to some extent with Monsieur's approval, of what was to become later on "The Conspiracy of the Bord de l'Eau"--of the waterside. L'Epingle Noire was already plotting in his own quarter. Delaverderie was conferring with Trogoff.M. Decazes, who was liberal to a degree, reigned.Chateaubriand stood every morning at his window at No. 27 Rue Saint-Dominique, clad in footed trousers, and slippers, with a madras kerchief knotted over his gray hair, with his eyes fixed on a mirror, a complete set of dentist's instruments spread out before him, cleaning his teeth, which were charming, while he dictated The Monarchy according to the Charter to M. pilorge, his secretary.Criticism, assuming an authoritative tone, preferred Lafon to Talma.M. de Feletez signed himself A.; M. Hoffmann signed himself Z. Charles Nodier wrote Therese Aubert. Divorce was abolished.Lyceums called themselves colleges. The collegians, decorated on the collar with a golden fleur-de-lys, fought each other apropos of the King of Rome.The counter-police of the chateau had denounced to her Royal Highness Madame, the portrait, everywhere exhibited, of M. the Duc d'Orleans, who made a better appearance in his uniform of a colonel-general of hussars than M. the Duc de Berri, in his uniform of colonel-general of dragoons-- a serious inconvenience.The city of paris was having the dome of the Invalides regilded at its own expense.Serious men asked themselves what M. de Trinquelague would do on such or such an occasion; M. Clausel de Montals differed on divers points from M. Clausel de Coussergues; M. de Salaberry was not satisfied.The comedian picard, who belonged to the Academy, which the comedian Moliere had not been able to do, had The Two philiberts played at the Odeon, upon whose pediment the removal of the letters still allowed THEATRE OF THE EMpRESS to be plainly read.people took part for or against Cugnet de Montarlot.Fabvier was factious; Bavoux was revolutionary. The Liberal, pelicier, published an edition of Voltaire, with the following title:Works of Voltaire, of the French Academy.

     "That will attract purchasers," said the ingenious editor.The general opinion was that M. Charles Loyson would be the genius of the century; envy was beginning to gnaw at him--a sign of glory; and this verse was composed on him:--
     "Even when Loyson steals, one feels that he has paws."

     As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de pins, Archbishop of Amasie, administered the diocese of Lyons.The quarrel over the valley of Dappes was begun between Switzerland and France by a memoir from Captain, afterwards General Dufour.Saint-Simon, ignored, was erecting his sublime dream.There was a celebrated Fourier at the Academy of Science, whom posterity has forgotten; and in some garret an obscure Fourier, whom the future will recall. Lord Byron was beginning to make his mark; a note to a poem by Millevoye introduced him to France in these terms:a certain Lord Baron.David d'Angers was trying to work in marble.The Abbe Caron was speaking, in terms of praise, to a private gathering of seminarists in the blind alley of Feuillantines, of an unknown priest, named Felicite-Robert, who, at a latter date, became Lamennais. A thing which smoked and clattered on the Seine with the noise of a swimming dog went and came beneath the windows of the Tuileries, from the pont Royal to the pont Louis XV.; it was a piece of mechanism which was not good for much; a sort of plaything, the idle dream of a dream-ridden inventor; an utopia--a steamboat.The parisians stared indifferently at this useless thing.M. de Vaublanc, the reformer of the Institute by a coup d'etat, the distinguished author of numerous academicians, ordinances, and batches of members, after having created them, could not succeed in becoming one himself. The Faubourg Saint-Germain and the pavilion de Marsan wished to have M. Delaveau for prefect of police, on account of his piety. Dupuytren and Recamier entered into a quarrel in the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine, and threatened each other with their fists on the subject of the divinity of Jesus Christ.Cuvier, with one eye on Genesis and the other on nature, tried to please bigoted reaction by reconciling fossils with texts and by making mastodons flatter Moses.

     M. Francois de Neufchateau, the praiseworthy cultivator of the memory of parmentier, made a thousand efforts to have pomme de terre (potato) pronounced parmentiere, and succeeded therein not at all. The Abbe Gregoire, ex-bishop, ex-conventionary, ex-senator, had passed, in the royalist polemics, to the state of "Infamous Gregoire." The locution of which we have made use--passed to the state of--has been condemned as a neologism by M. Royer Collard.Under the third arch of the pont de Jena, the new stone with which, the two years previously, the mining aperture made by Blucher to blow up the bridge had been stopped up, was still recognizable on account of its whiteness. Justice summoned to its bar a man who, on seeing the Comte d'Artois enter Notre Dame, had said aloud:"Sapristi!I regret the time when I saw Bonaparte and Talma enter the Bel Sauvage, arm in arm." A seditious utterance.Six months in prison.Traitors showed themselves unbuttoned; men who had gone over to the enemy on the eve of battle made no secret of their recompense, and strutted immodestly in the light of day, in the cynicism of riches and dignities; deserters from Ligny and Quatre-Bras, in the brazenness of their well-paid turpitude, exhibited their devotion to the monarchy in the most barefaced manner.

     This is what floats up confusedly, pell-mell, for the year 1817, and is now forgotten.History neglects nearly all these particulars, and cannot do otherwise; the infinity would overwhelm it. Nevertheless, these details, which are wrongly called trivial,-- there are no trivial facts in humanity, nor little leaves in vegetation,--are useful.It is of the physiognomy of the years that the physiognomy of the centuries is composed. In this year of 1817 four young parisians arranged "a fine farce."

     一八一七年路易十八用那种目空一切的君王气魄，称之为他登基第二十二年①的那一年。也是布吕吉尔?德?沙松先生扬名的那一年。所有假发店老板一心希望扑粉和御鸟再次出现，都刷上了天蓝色灰浆并画上了百合花。②这是蓝舒伯爵穿上法兰西世卿服装，佩着红绶带，挺着长鼻子，带着新闻人物所具有的那种奇特侧影的威仪，以理事员身分每个礼拜日坐在圣日耳曼?代?勃雷教堂的公凳上的升平时期。蓝舒伯爵的功绩是这样的：他在任波尔多③市长期内，一八一四年三月十二日那天，把城池献给了昂古莱姆公爵，凭这项轰轰烈烈的功勋，他就得到了世卿的禄位。
①法国大革命在一七九三年推翻了君主专制，国王路易十六经国民公会判处极刑，王党捧路易十七（路易十六的儿子）为国王继承人，路易十七在一七九五年死在狱中，路易十六之弟路易十八被认为继承人，他是在一八一五年拿破仑逊位才回国登王位的，但是他不承认王室的统治是中断了的，认为他的王权应从一 七九五年算起，照此推算一八一七是他的统治的第二十二年。
②百合花是法国波旁王朝的标志。贵族都戴假发，并以粉扑发为美。“御鸟”是一种髻的名称。
③波尔多（Bordeaux），为法国西南部滨大西洋的商业城市。拿破仑和英国争霸，封锁大陆，商业资产阶级深感痛苦，一八一四年三月，英国军队从西班牙侵入了法国南部时，他们把城池献给了敌人。昂古莱姆公爵是路易十八的侄儿，随着英国军队进入了波尔多。

    在一八一七年，四岁到六岁的男孩都戴一种极大的染色羊皮帽，成为风行一时的时装，帽子两旁有耳遮，颇象爱斯基摩人的高统帽。法国军队，仿奥地利式样，穿上了白军服，联队改称为驻防部队，不用番号，而冠以行省的名称。拿破仑还在圣赫勒拿岛，由于英国人不肯供应蓝呢布，他便翻旧衣服穿。在一八一七年，佩勒格利尼正在歌唱，比戈第尼姑娘正在跳舞，博基埃正红及一时，奥德利尚未出世。沙基夫人继福利奥佐①而起。在法国还有普鲁士人②。德拉洛先生③成了著名的人物。正统江山在斩了普勒尼埃、加尔波诺和托勒龙的手、又斩了他们的头④以后地位才宣告稳固。大臣塔列朗⑤王爷和钦命财政总长路易教士，好象两个巫师一样，相视而笑。⑥，他们两个都参加过一七九○年七月十四日在马尔斯广场举行的联邦弥撒，塔列朗以主教资格主祭，路易助祭。在一 八一七年，就在那马尔斯广场旁边的小路上，发现几根蓝漆大木柱倒在雨水和乱草里腐烂了，柱上的金鹰和金蜂都褪了色，只剩下一点痕迹。
①佩勒格利尼（Pellegrini），那不勒斯歌手，当时在巴黎演出。比戈第尼姑娘（Bigottini），当时的舞蹈家。博基埃（Potier），当时的喜剧演员。奥德利（Odry），喜剧演员。沙基夫人（MmeSaqui）和福利奥佐（Forioso），第一帝国时期最著名的杂技演员，表演走绳索的人。
②占领军在一八一八年才撤离法国。
③德拉洛（Delalot，1772—1842），极端保王派，《辩论日报》的编辑。
④普勒尼埃、加尔波诺、托勒龙，秘密会社社员，因赞成处死路易十六被处死。斩手又斩首是法国对弑王者的刑罚。
⑤塔列朗（Talleyrand，1754—1838），公爵，原是拿破仑的外交大臣，一八○七年免职后勾结国外势力。一八一四年三月俄普联军攻入巴黎，塔列朗组织临时内阁，迎接路易十八回国。
⑥巫师共同作弊，彼此心里明白，所以相视而笑。

    那些柱子是两年前开五月会议⑦时搭建御用礼台用的。驻扎在大石头附近的奥地利军队的露营部已把它们烧得遍体焦痕了。其中的两三根已被那些露营部队劈作柴火烧掉了，并还烘过日耳曼皇军的巨掌。五月会议有这样一个特点，那就是五月会议是六月间在马尔斯广场上举行的。在一 八一七年里，有两件事是人人知道的：伏尔泰—都格事件和鼻烟壶上刻的宪章问题。巴黎最新的惊人消息是杜丹的罪案，杜丹曾把他兄弟的脑袋丢在花市水池里。海军部开始调查海船墨杜萨号事件，这使肖马勒蒙羞，热利果风光一时。塞尔夫上校赴埃及去做沙里蒙总督。竖琴街的浴宫做了一个修桶匠的店面。当时在克吕尼宅子的八角塔的平台上，还能看见一间小木板房子，那是梅西埃的天文台，就是做过路易十六的海军天文官的梅西埃。杜拉公爵夫人在她那间陈设了天蓝缎交叉式家具的客厅里，对着三四个朋友朗诵她作的那篇未经发表的《舞力卡》。
⑦五月会议是拿破仑于一八一五年召集的一种人民代表会议。

    卢浮宫里的“N①正被刮去。奥斯特里茨桥退位了，更名为御花园桥，那种双关的隐语把奥斯特里茨桥和植物园②都同时隐没了。路易十八拿起《贺拉斯》③，用指甲尖划着读，特别注意那些做皇帝的英雄和做王子的木鞋匠，因为他有双重顾虑：拿破仑和马蒂兰?布吕诺④。法兰西学院的征文题目是《读书乐》。伯拉先生经官府承认了他确有辩才。在他的培养下，未来的检察长德勃洛艾已崭露头角，立志学习保尔—路易?古利埃的尖刻。那年有个冒充里昂⑤的马尚吉，随后又有个冒充马尚吉的达兰谷。《克勒尔?达尔伯》和《马勒克—亚岱尔》被称为两部杰作。歌丹夫人被推为当时的第一作家。法兰西学院任人把院士拿破仑?波拿巴从它的名册上除名。国王命令在昂古莱姆⑥设立海军学校，因为昂古莱姆公爵是个伟大的海军大臣，昂古莱姆城就当然具有海港的一切优越条件，否则君主制就丧失了体统了。法兰柯尼⑦在他的布告上加上一些有关骑术的插图，吸引了街上的野孩子，内阁会议曾经热烈讨论应不应该容许他那样做。
① N是拿破仑的徵志。”
②巴黎植物园初建于十七世纪初，一七九三年起曾被扩建。
③《贺拉斯》（Horace），高乃依根据罗马历史故事所改编的悲剧。
④马蒂兰?布吕诺（MathurinBrunequ），当时名人之一，木鞋匠出身，所以路易十八对他存有戒心。
⑤夏多布里昂（Chatequbriand，1768—1848），法国作家，消极浪漫主义文学的创始人。
⑥昂古莱姆（Angouleme），城名，在内地，不在海滨。
⑦法兰柯尼是一个养马官。

    巴埃先生，《亚尼丝阿》的作者，颊上生了一颗肉痣的方脸好人，常在主教城街沙塞南侯爵夫人家里布置小型家庭音乐会。所有的年轻姑娘都唱爱德蒙?热罗作词的《圣阿卫尔的隐者》。《黄矮子报》改成了《镜报》。朗布兰咖啡馆抬出了皇帝来对抗那家拥护波旁王室的瓦洛亚咖啡馆。人家刚把西西里的一个公主嫁给那位已被卢韦尔①暗中注意的贝里公爵。斯达尔夫人②去世已一年。近卫军老向马尔斯③小姐喝倒彩。各种大报都只有一点点大，篇幅缩小，但是自由还是大的。
①卢韦尔（Louvel）是个制造马鞍的工人，他刺杀了贝里公爵，贝里公爵是路易十八的侄儿，杀死他，是想绝王族之后。
②斯达尔夫人（MadamedeStacl），浪漫主义作家。
③马尔斯（Mars），喜剧演员。

    《立宪主义者报》是拥护宪政的。《密涅瓦报》把 Chateaubriand（夏多布里昂）写成 Chateaubriant。资产阶级借写错了的那个 t字狠狠嘲笑这位大作家。在一些被收买了的报纸里，有些妓女式的新闻记者辱骂那些在一八一五年被清洗的人们，大卫④已经没有才艺了，亚尔诺⑤已经没有文思了，卡诺⑥已经没有羞耻了，苏尔特⑦从来没有打过胜仗，拿破仑确也没有天才。大家都知道，通过邮局寄给一个被放逐的人的信件是很少寄到的，警察把截留那些信件作为他们的神圣职责。那种事由来已久，被放逐的笛卡儿⑧便诉过苦。大卫为了收不到他的信件在比利时的一家报纸上发了几句牢骚，引起了保王党报刊的兴趣，借此机会，把那位被放逐者着实讥讽了一番。说“弑君犯”或“投票人”⑨，说“敌人”或“盟友”⑩，说“拿破仑”或“布宛纳巴”（11），一字之差，可以在两人之间造成一道鸿沟。
④大卫（Devid），油画家，曾任国民公会代表，后为拿破仑所器重。
⑤亚尔诺（Arnault），诗人和寓言家。
⑥卡诺（Carnot），数学家，国民公会代表，公安委员会委员，共和国十四军的创始者，一七九四年参加热月九日反革命政变。
⑦苏尔特（Soult），拿破仑部下的元帅，奥斯特里茨一役立首功。
⑧笛卡儿（Descartcs，1569—1650），法国二元论哲学家。
⑨指投票赞成斩决路易十六的代表之一。
⑩指帮助波旁王室复辟的奥、英、俄、普等同盟国。

    一切头脑清醒的人都认为这革命的世纪已被国王路易十八永远封闭了，他被称为“宪章的不朽的创作者”。在新桥的桥堍平地，准备建立享利四世①铜像的石座上已经刻上“更生”两字。比艾先生在戴莱丝街四 号筹备他的秘密会议，以图巩固君主制度。右派的领袖在严重关头，老是说：“我们应当写信给巴柯。”加奴埃、奥马阿呢、德?沙伯德兰诸人正策划日后所谓的“水滨阴谋”，他们多少征得了御弟②的同意。“黑别针”在另一方面也有所策动。德拉卫德里和特洛果夫正进行谈判。多少具有一些自由思想的德卡兹③先生正掌握实权。夏多布里昂每天早晨立在圣多米尼克街二十七号的窗子前面，穿着长裤和拖鞋，一条马德拉斯绸巾裹着他的灰白头发，眼睛望着一面镜子，全套牙科手术工具箱开在面前，一边修着他的好看的牙齿，一面向他的书记毕洛瑞先生口述《君主与宪章》的诠言。权威批评家称赞拉封而不称赞塔尔马④。德?菲勒茨⑤先生签名 A，霍夫曼⑥先生签 Z。查理?诺缔埃⑦正创作《泰莱斯?阿贝尔》。离婚被禁止了。中学校改称中学馆。衣领上装一朵金质百合花的中学生因罗马王⑧问题互相斗殴。
①享利四世是波旁王朝第一代国王。
②御弟，指路易十八之弟阿图瓦伯爵，后来继承路易十八王位的查理十世。
③德卡兹（Decazea），路易十八的警务大臣。当时的自由思想是维护资产阶级个人权利的学说。
④拉封（Lafon）和塔尔马（Talma），当时的悲剧演员，后来曾受拿破仑赞赏。
⑤菲勒茨（Feletz），拥护古典主义反对浪漫主义的批评家。
⑥霍夫曼（Hoffman），戏剧作家和批评家。
⑦查理?诺缔埃（CharlesNodier，1783—1844），法国作家。
⑧罗马王，拿破仑和玛丽亚?路易莎所生之子。

    宫庭侦探向夫人殿下⑨递报告，说奥尔良公爵⑩的像四处悬挂，并说他穿轻骑将军制服的相貌比穿龙骑将军制服的贝里公爵还好看是件很不妥的事。巴黎自筹经费把残废军人院的屋顶重行装了金。正派人彼此猜问：德?特兰克拉格先生在某种和某种情形下会怎样处理？克洛塞尔?德?蒙达尔先生和克洛塞尔?德?古塞格先生在许多方面意见分歧，德?沙拉伯利先生不得志。喜剧家比加尔，戏剧学院（喜剧家莫里哀也不曾当选的那个戏剧学院）的院士，在奥德翁戏院公演《两个菲力浦》，在那戏院的大门头上，揭去了的字还清楚地露着“皇后戏院”的字迹。有些人对古涅?德?蒙达洛的态度不一致。法布维埃是暴动分子，巴武是革命党人。贝里西埃书店印行了一部伏尔泰文集，题名为《法兰西学院院士伏尔泰文集》。那位天真的发行人说：“这样做可以招揽买主”。一般舆论认为查理?罗丛先生是本世纪的天才，他已开始受人仰慕，那是光荣的预兆，并且有人为他写了句这样的诗：鹅雏①纵能飞，无以匿其蹼。
⑨夫人殿下，指路易十八的弟媳妇，阿图瓦伯爵夫人，贝里公爵的母亲。
⑩奥尔良公爵，指一八三○年继查理十世（即阿图瓦伯爵）为王的路易—菲力浦。
①鹅雏（l’oison）和罗丛（loyson）同音，鹅雏是小笨蛋的意思。

    红衣主教费什既然不肯辞职，只得由亚马齐总主教德班先生管辖里昂教区。瑞士和法兰西两国关于达泊河流域的争执因杜福尔统领的一篇密报而展开了，从此他升为将军。不闻名的圣西门②正计划他的好梦。科学院有过一个闻名于世的傅立叶，后人已把他忘了，我不知道从哪个角落里又钻出了另一个无名的傅立叶。③，后世却将永志不忘。贵人拜伦初露头角；米尔瓦把他介绍给法兰西，在一篇诗的注解中有这样的词句：“有某贵人拜伦者??”大卫?德?昂热④正试制大理石粉。加龙教士在斐扬死巷向一小群青年教士称赞一个无名的神甫，这人叫费里西德?罗贝尔，他便是日后的拉梅耐⑤。一只煤烟腾漫、扑扑作声的东西，在杜伊勒里宫的窗子下面、王家桥和路易十五桥间的塞纳河上来回走动，其声如同泅水的狗，那是一件没有多大益处的机器，一种玩具，异想天开的发明家的一种幻梦，一种乌托邦——一只汽船。
②圣西门（Saint—Simon），空想社会主义者。
③这一个傅立叶是随拿破仑出征埃及的几何学家，著有《出征埃及记》。另一傅立叶是空想社会主义者。
④大卫?德?昂热（Davidd’Angers，1786—1856），法国雕塑家。
⑤拉梅耐（Lamennais，1782—1854），法国神甫，政论家。

    巴黎人对那废物漠然置之。德?沃布兰先生用强力改组了科学院，组织、人选，一手包办，轰轰烈烈地安插了好几个院士，自己却落得一场空。圣日耳曼郊区和马桑营都期望德纳福先生做警署署长，因为他虔信天主。杜彼唐①和雷加密②为了耶稣基督的神情问题在医科学校的圆讲堂里争论起来，弄得挥拳相向。居维叶③一只眼睛望着《创世记》，另一只眼睛望着自然界，为了取媚于迷信的反动势力，于是用化石证实经文，用猛犸颂扬摩西。
①杜彼唐（Dupuytren），法国外科医生。
②雷加密（Recamier），法国内科医生。
③居维叶（Cuvier），法国自然科学家。

    佛朗沙?德?诺夫沙多先生，帕芒蒂埃④的一个可敬的继起者，千方百计要使 pommedeterre（马铃薯）读成“帕芒蒂埃”，但毫无结果。格列高利神甫，前主教，前国民公会代表，前元老院元老，在保王党的宣传手册里竟成了“无耻的格列高利”。我们刚才所用的这一词组“竟成了??”是被罗叶—柯拉尔认作新词的。在耶拿桥的第三桥洞下，人们还可以从颜色的洁白上认出那块用来填塞布吕歇尔⑤在两年前为了炸桥而凿的火药眼的新石头。有一个人看见阿图瓦伯爵走进圣母院，那人大声说：“见他妈的鬼！我真留恋我从前看见波拿巴和塔尔马手挽手同赴蛮舞会的那个时代。”法庭传讯了他，认为那是叛徒的口吻，判以六个月监禁。一 些卖国贼明目张胆地露面了，有些在某次战争前夕投敌的人完全不隐蔽他们所得的赃款，并在光天化日之下，不顾羞耻，卖弄他们的可耻的富贵。里尼和四臂村⑥的一些叛徒，毫不掩饰他们爱国的丑行，还表示他们为国王尽忠的热忱，竟忘了英国公共厕所内墙上所写的 Pleaseedjustyourdressbeforeleaving。⑦这些都是在一八一七年（现在已没有人记得的一年）发生过的一些事。拉拉杂杂，信手拈来。这些特点历史几乎全部忽略了，那也是无可奈何的事，因为实在记不胜记。可是这些小事（我们原不应当称之为小）都是有用的；人类没有小事，犹如植物没有小叶，世纪的面貌是岁月的动态构成的。
    在一八一七那年里，四个巴黎青年开了一个“妙打趣”。
④帕芒蒂埃（Parmentier，1737—1813），第一个在法国种植马铃薯的人。
⑤布吕歇尔（Blucher，1742—1819），参加滑铁卢战争的普鲁士将领。
⑥一八一五年六月十六日，即滑铁卢战役的前两日，拿破仑在里尼击败普鲁士军队，又在四臂村击败英国军队。两地都在比利时境内。
⑦英文，意为“出去以前，请先整理衣服。”

     These parisians came, one from Toulouse, another from Limoges, the third from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban; but they were students; and when one says student, one says parisian: to study in paris is to be born in paris.

     These young men were insignificant; every one has seen such faces; four specimens of humanity taken at random; neither good nor bad, neither wise nor ignorant, neither geniuses nor fools; handsome, with that charming April which is called twenty years.They were four Oscars; for, at that epoch, Arthurs did not yet exist. Burn for him the perfumes of Araby! exclaimed romance. Oscar advances.Oscar, I shall behold him!people had just emerged from Ossian; elegance was Scandinavian and Caledonian; the pure English style was only to prevail later, and the first of the Arthurs, Wellington, had but just won the battle of Waterloo.

     These Oscars bore the names, one of Felix Tholomyes, of Toulouse; the second, Listolier, of Cahors; the next, Fameuil, of Limoges; the last, Blachevelle, of Montauban.Naturally, each of them had his mistress.Blachevelle loved Favourite, so named because she had been in England; Listolier adored Dahlia, who had taken for her nickname the name of a flower; Fameuil idolized Zephine, an abridgment of Josephine; Tholomyes had Fantine, called the Blonde, because of her beautiful, sunny hair.

     Favourite, Dahlia, Zephine, and Fantine were four ravishing young women, perfumed and radiant, still a little like working-women, and not yet entirely divorced from their needles; somewhat disturbed by intrigues, but still retaining on their faces something of the serenity of toil, and in their souls that flower of honesty which survives the first fall in woman.One of the four was called the young, because she was the youngest of them, and one was called the old; the old one was twenty-three. Not to conceal anything, the three first were more experienced, more heedless, and more emancipated into the tumult of life than Fantine the Blonde, who was still in her first illusions.

     Dahlia, Zephine, and especially Favourite, could not have said as much. There had already been more than one episode in their romance, though hardly begun; and the lover who had borne the name of Adolph in the first chapter had turned out to be Alphonse in the second, and Gustave in the third.poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors; one scolds and the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of the people have both of them whispering in their ear, each on its own side.These badly guarded souls listen.Hence the falls which they accomplish, and the stones which are thrown at them. They are overwhelmed with splendor of all that is immaculate and inaccessible.Alas! what if the Jungfrau were hungry?

     Favourite having been in England, was admired by Dahlia and Zephine. She had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father was an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a braggart, who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This professor, when he was a young man, had one day seen a chambermaid's gown catch on a fender; he had fallen in love in consequence of this accident.The result had been Favourite.She met her father from time to time, and he bowed to her.One morning an old woman with the air of a devotee, had entered her apartments, and had said to her, "You do not know me, Mamemoiselle?""No." "I am your mother." Then the old woman opened the sideboard, and ate and drank, had a mattress which she owned brought in, and installed herself. This cross and pious old mother never spoke to Favourite, remained hours without uttering a word, breakfasted, dined, and supped for four, and went down to the porter's quarters for company, where she spoke ill of her daughter.

     It was having rosy nails that were too pretty which had drawn Dahlia to Listolier, to others perhaps, to idleness.How could she make such nails work?She who wishes to remain virtuous must not have pity on her hands.As for Zephine, she had conquered Fameuil by her roguish and caressing little way of saying "Yes, sir."

     The young men were comrades; the young girls were friends. Such loves are always accompanied by such friendships.
     Goodness and philosophy are two distinct things; the proof of this is that, after making all due allowances for these little irregular households, Favourite, Zephine, and Dahlia were philosophical young women, while Fantine was a good girl.

     Good! some one will exclaim; and Tholomyes?Solomon would reply that love forms a part of wisdom.We will confine ourselves to saying that the love of Fantine was a first love, a sole love, a faithful love.
     She alone, of all the four, was not called "thou" by a single one of them.

     Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the dregs of the people.Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable depths of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the unknown.She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents?Who can say?She had never known father or mother. She was called Fantine.Why Fantine?She had never borne any other name.At the epoch of her birth the Directory still existed. She had no family name; she had no family; no baptismal name; the Church no longer existed.She bore the name which pleased the first random passer-by, who had encountered her, when a very small child, running bare-legged in the street.She received the name as she received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it rained. She was called little Fantine.No one knew more than that.This human creature had entered life in just this way.At the age of ten, Fantine quitted the town and went to service with some farmers in the neighborhood.At fifteen she came to paris "to seek her fortune." Fantine was beautiful, and remained pure as long as she could. She was a lovely blonde, with fine teeth.She had gold and pearls for her dowry; but her gold was on her head, and her pearls were in her mouth.

     She worked for her living; then, still for the sake of her living,-- for the heart, also, has its hunger,--she loved.
     She loved Tholomyes.

     An amour for him; passion for her.The streets of the Latin quarter, filled with throngs of students and grisettes, saw the beginning of their dream.Fantine had long evaded Tholomyes in the mazes of the hill of the pantheon, where so many adventurers twine and untwine, but in such a way as constantly to encounter him again. There is a way of avoiding which resembles seeking.In short, the eclogue took place.

     Blachevelle, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group of which Tholomyes was the head.It was he who possessed the wit.

     Tholomyes was the antique old student; he was rich; he had an income of four thousand francs; four thousand francs! a splendid scandal on Mount Sainte-Genevieve. Tholomyes was a fast man of thirty, and badly preserved.He was wrinkled and toothless, and he had the beginning of a bald spot, of which he himself said with sadness, the skull at thirty, the knee at forty.His digestion was mediocre, and he had been attacked by a watering in one eye.But in proportion as his youth disappeared, gayety was kindled; he replaced his teeth with buffooneries, his hair with mirth, his health with irony, his weeping eye laughed incessantly.He was dilapidated but still in flower. His youth, which was packing up for departure long before its time, beat a retreat in good order, bursting with laughter, and no one saw anything but fire.He had had a piece rejected at the Vaudeville. He made a few verses now and then.In addition to this he doubted everything to the last degree, which is a vast force in the eyes of the weak.Being thus ironical and bald, he was the leader. Iron is an English word.Is it possible that irony is derived from it?

     One day Tholomyes took the three others aside, with the gesture of an oracle, and said to them:--

     "Fantine, Dahlia, Zephine, and Favourite have been teasing us for nearly a year to give them a surprise.We have promised them solemnly that we would.They are forever talking about it to us, to me in particular, just as the old women in Naples cry to Saint Januarius, `Faccia gialluta, fa o miracolo, Yellow face, perform thy miracle,' so our beauties say to me incessantly, `Tholomyes, when will you bring forth your surprise?'At the same time our parents keep writing to us. pressure on both sides.The moment has arrived, it seems to me; let us discuss the question."

     Thereupon, Tholomyes lowered his voice and articulated something so mirthful, that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke out upon the four mouths simultaneously, and Blachevelle exclaimed, "That is an idea."
     A smoky tap-room presented itself; they entered, and the remainder of their confidential colloquy was lost in shadow.

     The result of these shades was a dazzling pleasure party which took place on the following Sunday, the four young men inviting the four young girls.

     上面提到的那些巴黎青年中，有一个是图卢兹人，一个是利摩日人，第三个是卡奥尔人，第四个是蒙托邦人，不过他们都是学生，凡是学生，都是巴黎人，在巴黎求学，便算生在巴黎。

    他们都是一些不值一提的青年，谁都见过这一类的人，四种庸俗人的标本，既不善，也不恶，既无学问，又非无知，即非天才，亦非笨伯，年方二十，美如明媚的阳春。这是四个毫不出奇的奥斯卡尔①，因为在那时代，阿瑟②还没有出世。当时的歌谣说：“为了他，点上龙涎香，奥斯卡尔走上前来，奥斯卡尔，我要去看他！”大家已放下了《欧辛集》③。姿态的俊美所崇尚的是斯堪的纳维亚式和苏格兰式。纯粹英国式要到以后才风行，并且阿瑟派的头号人物威灵顿得逞于滑铁卢战役时间还不久。
①奥斯卡尔（Oscar），瑞典和挪威国王，一七九九年生于巴黎。
②阿瑟（Arthur），美国第二十一届总统，生于一八三○年。
③《欧辛集》（Ossian）系一部古诗集的名称，苏格兰文人麦克弗森（Macpherson）的英译本发表于一七 六○年，有人说该诗集系麦克弗森仿古的创作，曾传诵一时。

    那些奥斯卡尔中间有一个叫斐利克斯?多罗米埃，图卢兹人；一个叫李士多里，卡奥尔人；还有一个叫法梅依，利摩日人；最后一个是勃拉什维尔，蒙托邦人。自然每个人都有他的情妇。勃拉什维尔爱宠儿，她取了那样一个名字，是因为她到英国去过一趟；李士多里钟情于用花名作别名的大丽；法梅依奉瑟芬如天人，瑟芬是约瑟芬的简称；多罗米埃有芳汀，别号金发美人，因为她生得一头日光色的美发。

    宠儿、大丽、瑟芬和芳汀是四个春风满面、香气袭人的美女，但仍带有一点女工的本色，因为她们并未完全脱离针线活，虽然谈情说爱，她们脸上总还多少保存一点劳动者的庄重气味，在她们的心里也还有一 朵不因破瓜而消失的诚实之花。四个人里，有一个叫做小妹，因为她的年龄最轻，还有一个叫做大姐。大姐二十三岁。不瞒大家说，起头的三 个人，都比金发美人芳汀有经验些，放得开些，在人生的喧嚣中阅历多些，芳汀却还正做着她初次的情梦。

    大丽，瑟芬，尤其是宠儿，都不大可能有那种痴情。她们的情史，虽然刚开始，却已发生过多次的波折，第一章里的情人叫阿多尔夫，第二章里的却变了阿尔封斯，到第三章又是古士达夫了。贫寒和爱俏是两种逼死人的动力，一个埋怨，一个逢迎。平民中的一般美貌姑娘都兼而有之，每一个都附在一边耳朵上细语不休。防范不严的心灵便俯首听命了。自己落井的原因在此，别人下石的原因也在此。而人们却总要拿那一切晶莹无瑕、高不可攀的贞操来对她们求全责备。唉！如果少妇无法忍受饥寒之苦呢？

    宠儿到英国去过一趟，因此瑟芬和大丽都羡慕她。她很早就有个家。她的父亲是个性情暴躁、爱吹牛皮的老数学教师，从没正式结过婚，虽然年纪大了，却还靠替人补课度日。这位教师在年轻时，有一天看见女仆的一件衣裳挂在炉遮上，便为了这么件偶然的事，动了春心。结果便有了宠儿。她有时碰见父亲，她父亲总向她行礼。有一天早晨，一个稀奇古怪的老婆子走到她家里来，对她说：“小姐，您不认识我吗？”“不认识。”“我是你的妈。”那老婆子随即打开了菜橱，吃喝以后，又把她一床褥子搬来，住下了。那位叽哩咕噜、笃信上帝的母亲从不和宠儿说话，几个钟头里能一个字也不说，早餐、中餐、晚餐，她一个人吃的抵得上四个人，还要到门房里去串门，说她女儿的坏话。大丽委身于李士多里，也许还结识过别人，她之所以游手好闲，是她那十只过分美丽的桃红指甲在作怪。怎能忍心让那样的指甲去做工呢？凡是愿意保全自己清白的人都不应怜惜自己的手。至于瑟芬，她之所以能征服法梅依，是因为她能用一种娇气里带着娇媚的神态对他说：“是呀，先生。”

    那些青年是同学，那群姑娘是朋友。那种爱情总是有那种友谊陪衬着的。
    自爱和自知是两码子事。这儿有个证明，我们暂且把他们那处不正规的结合放下不谈，我们可以说宠儿、瑟芬和大丽是有自知之明的姑娘，芳汀却是自爱的姑娘。

    我们可以说她自爱吗？那么，多罗米埃又怎么说呢？所罗门也许会回答说爱也是一种自爱之道。我们只说芳汀的爱是初次的爱，专一的爱，真诚的爱。
    她在那四人当中，是唯一只许一个人对她称“你”的。

    芳汀是那样一个从平民的底层（不妨这样说）孕育出来的孩子。她虽然是从黑暗社会那种深不可测的潭渊中生出来的，她风度却让人弄不清她的来历和身世。她生在滨海蒙特勒伊①。出自怎样的父母？谁知道？谁也没有见过她的父母。她叫芳停为什么叫芳汀呢？因为人家从来不知道她有别的名字。她出世时，督政府②还存在。她没有姓，因为她没有家；她没有教名，因为当时教堂已不愿过问这类事了。她在很小时赤着脚在街上走，一个过路人这样叫了她，她就得了这个名字，她接受了这个名字，正象她额头在下雨时从天上接受了一点雨水一样。大家都叫她做小芳停除此而外，谁也不知道关于她的其他事。她便是如此来到人世上的。十岁上，芳汀出城到附近的庄稼人家里去作工。十五岁上，她到巴黎来“碰运气”。芳汀生得美，她保持她的童贞直到最后一刻。她是一个牙齿洁白、头发浅黄的漂亮姑娘。她有黄金和珍珠做奁资，不过她的黄金在她的头上，珍珠在她的口中。
①滨海蒙特勒伊（Montreuil-sur-mer），法国北部加来海峡省的一县。
②督政府（Directoire），一七九五年，革命的国民公会解散，让位于代表新兴富豪阶级的督政府，一七九 九年督政府解散，政权转入以波拿巴为首的执政府。

    她为生活而工作，到后来，她爱上了人，这同样还是为生活，因为心也有它的饥饿之时。她爱上了多罗米埃。
    对他而言，这不过是逢场作戏，而对她，却是真情一片。挤满了青年学生和青年姑娘的拉丁区曾目击那场情梦的滋生蔓长。在先贤祠的高坡一带，见过多少悲欢离合的那些长街曲巷里，芳汀逃避多罗米埃何止一次，但是躲避他却正是为了遇见他。世间有那么一种躲避，恰好象是追求。简单地说，情史开端了。

    勃拉什维尔、李士多里和法梅依彼此形影不离，并以多罗米埃为首领。他办法多。多罗米埃是往日那种老资格的学生，他有钱，他有四千法郎的年息，四千法郎的年息，在圣热纳微埃夫山①上，足够为所欲为了。多罗米埃已有三十岁了，一向寻欢作乐，不爱惜身体。他脸上已起了皱纹，牙齿也不齐全，头也秃了顶；他自己对此并不在乎，他常说：“三十岁的头顶秃，四十岁的膝头僵。”他的消化力平常，有一只眼睛常淌泪。但是他的青春消失得越远，他的兴致却越高。
①     拉丁区，巴黎大学所在地区。

    他用谐谑代替他的牙齿，欢乐代替他的头发，讥讽代替他的健康，那只泪汪汪的眼睛也总是笑眯眯的。他已经疲劳过度，却仍旧勇气横溢，尽管年龄不大，青春先萎，他却能且战且退，整军以还，笑声爽劲，在别人看来，火力还是很足的。他写过一篇戏剧，被滑稽剧院退了回来。他随时随地写一些不知所云的诗。并且，他自命不凡，怀疑一切事物，在胆怯的人的眼里他成了一条好汉。因此，尽管秃头，爱讽刺，他倒做了领袖。Iron是一个作“铁”解释的英国字。难道作“讽刺”解释的 ironie是从这英文字来的吗？有一天，多罗米埃把那三个人拉到一边，指手画脚地向他们说：“芳汀，大丽，瑟芬和宠儿要我们送她们一件古怪玩意儿已快一年了。我们也曾大模大样地答应了她们。她们直到现在还常常对我们提起这件事，尤其是对着我。正好象那不勒斯①的那些老太婆常对圣詹纳罗喊着说‘黄面皮，快显灵！’一样，我们的美人也经常向我们说：‘多罗米埃，你那怪玩意儿什么时候拿出来？’同时我们的父母又常有信给我们。两面夹攻。我认为时间已经到了。我们来商量商量。”
①不勒斯（Naples），意大利西岸港口。圣詹纳罗（SaintJanvier）又译圣雅怒亚里，是它的保护神。

    说到此处，多罗米埃的声音放低了，并且鬼鬼祟祟地讲了些话，有趣得使那四张口同时发出一阵爽朗、兴奋的笑声，勃拉什维尔还喊道：“这真是妙不可言！”他们走到一个烟雾腾腾的咖啡馆门前，钻了进去，他们会议的尾声便在黑暗中消失了。
    这次密谈的结果是下星期日举行的那场别出心裁的郊游，四位青年邀请了四位姑娘。

     It is hard nowadays to picture to one's self what a pleasure-trip of students and grisettes to the country was like, forty-five years ago. The suburbs of paris are no longer the same; the physiognomy of what may be called circumparisian life has changed completely in the last half-century; where there was the cuckoo, there is the railway car; where there was a tender-boat, there is now the steamboat; people speak of Fecamp nowadays as they spoke of Saint-Cloud in those days. The paris of 1862 is a city which has France for its outskirts.

     The four couples conscientiously went through with all the country follies possible at that time.The vacation was beginning, and it was a warm, bright, summer day.On the preceding day, Favourite, the only one who knew how to write, had written the following to Tholomyes in the name of the four:"It is a good hour to emerge from happiness."That is why they rose at five o'clock in the morning. Then they went to Saint-Cloud by the coach, looked at the dry cascade and exclaimed, "This must be very beautiful when there is water!" They breakfasted at the Tete-Noir, where Castaing had not yet been; they treated themselves to a game of ring-throwing under the quincunx of trees of the grand fountain; they ascended Diogenes' lantern, they gambled for macaroons at the roulette establishment of the pont de Sevres, picked bouquets at pateaux, bought reed-pipes at Neuilly, ate apple tarts everywhere, and were perfectly happy.

     The young girls rustled and chatted like warblers escaped from their cage.It was a perfect delirium.From time to time they bestowed little taps on the young men.Matutinal intoxication of life! adorable years! the wings of the dragonfly quiver.Oh, whoever you may be, do you not remember?Have you rambled through the brushwood, holding aside the branches, on account of the charming head which is coming on behind you?Have you slid, laughing, down a slope all wet with rain, with a beloved woman holding your hand, and crying, "Ah, my new boots! what a state they are in!"

     Let us say at once that that merry obstacle, a shower, was lacking in the case of this good-humored party, although Favourite had said as they set out, with a magisterial and maternal tone, "The slugs are crawling in the paths,--a sign of rain, children."

     All four were madly pretty.A good old classic poet, then famous, a good fellow who had an Eleonore, M. le Chevalier de Labouisse, as he strolled that day beneath the chestnut-trees of Saint-Cloud, saw them pass about ten o'clock in the morning, and exclaimed, "There is one too many of them," as he thought of the Graces. Favourite, Blachevelle's friend, the one aged three and twenty, the old one, ran on in front under the great green boughs, jumped the ditches, stalked distractedly over bushes, and presided over this merry-making with the spirit of a young female faun. Zephine and Dahlia, whom chance had made beautiful in such a way that they set each off when they were together, and completed each other, never left each other, more from an instinct of coquetry than from friendship, and clinging to each other, they assumed English poses; the first keepsakes had just made their appearance, melancholy was dawning for women, as later on, Byronism dawned for men; and the hair of the tender sex began to droop dolefully.Zephine and Dahlia had their hair dressed in rolls.Listolier and Fameuil, who were engaged in discussing their professors, explained to Fantine the difference that existed between M. Delvincourt and M. Blondeau.

     Blachevelle seemed to have been created expressly to carry Favourite's single-bordered, imitation India shawl of Ternaux's manufacture, on his arm on Sundays.

     Tholomyes followed, dominating the group.He was very gay, but one felt the force of government in him; there was dictation in his joviality; his principal ornament was a pair of trousers of elephant-leg pattern of nankeen, with straps of braided copper wire; he carried a stout rattan worth two hundred francs in his hand, and, as he treated himself to everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was sacred to him; he smoked.

     "That Tholomyes is astounding!" said the others, with veneration. "What trousers!What energy!"

     As for Fantine, she was a joy to behold.Her splendid teeth had evidently received an office from God,--laughter.She preferred to carry her little hat of sewed straw, with its long white strings, in her hand rather than on her head.Her thick blond hair, which was inclined to wave, and which easily uncoiled, and which it was necessary to fasten up incessantly, seemed made for the flight of Galatea under the willows.Her rosy lips babbled enchantingly. The corners of her mouth voluptuously turned up, as in the antique masks of Erigone, had an air of encouraging the audacious; but her long, shadowy lashes drooped discreetly over the jollity of the lower part of the face as though to call a halt.There was something indescribably harmonious and striking about her entire dress. She wore a gown of mauve barege, little reddish brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her fine, white, open-worked stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseilles invention, whose name, canezou, a corruption of the words quinze aout, pronounced after the fashion of the Canebiere, signifies fine weather, heat, and midday. The three others, less timid, as we have already said, wore low-necked dresses without disguise, which in summer, beneath flower-adorned hats, are very graceful and enticing; but by the side of these audacious outfits, blond Fantine's canezou, with its transparencies, its indiscretion, and its reticence, concealing and displaying at one and the same time, seemed an alluring godsend of decency, and the famous Court of Love, presided over by the Vicomtesse de Cette, with the sea-green eyes, would, perhaps, have awarded the prize for coquetry to this canezou, in the contest for the prize of modesty. The most ingenious is, at times, the wisest.This does happen.

     Brilliant of face, delicate of profile, with eyes of a deep blue, heavy lids, feet arched and small, wrists and ankles admirably formed, a white skin which, here and there allowed the azure branching of the veins to be seen, joy, a cheek that was young and fresh, the robust throat of the Juno of AEgina, a strong and supple nape of the neck, shoulders modelled as though by Coustou, with a voluptuous dimple in the middle, visible through the muslin; a gayety cooled by dreaminess; sculptural and exquisite--such was Fantine; and beneath these feminine adornments and these ribbons one could divine a statue, and in that statue a soul.

     Fantine was beautiful, without being too conscious of it. Those rare dreamers, mysterious priests of the beautiful who silently confront everything with perfection, would have caught a glimpse in this little working-woman, through the transparency of her parisian grace, of the ancient sacred euphony.This daughter of the shadows was thoroughbred.She was beautiful in the two ways-- style and rhythm.Style is the form of the ideal; rhythm is its movement.

     We have said that Fantine was joy; she was also modesty.

     To an observer who studied her attentively, that which breathed from her athwart all the intoxication of her age, the season, and her love affair, was an invincible expression of reserve and modesty. She remained a little astonished.This chaste astonishment is the shade of difference which separates psyche from Venus. Fantine had the long, white, fine fingers of the vestal virgin who stirs the ashes of the sacred fire with a golden pin.Although she would have refused nothing to Tholomyes, as we shall have more than ample opportunity to see, her face in repose was supremely virginal; a sort of serious and almost austere dignity suddenly overwhelmed her at certain times, and there was nothing more singular and disturbing than to see gayety become so suddenly extinct there, and meditation succeed to cheerfulness without any transition state. This sudden and sometimes severely accentuated gravity resembled the disdain of a goddess.Her brow, her nose, her chin, presented that equilibrium of outline which is quite distinct from equilibrium of proportion, and from which harmony of countenance results; in the very characteristic interval which separates the base of the nose from the upper lip, she had that imperceptible and charming fold, a mysterious sign of chastity, which makes Barberousse fall in love with a Diana found in the treasures of Iconia.

     Love is a fault; so be it.Fantine was innocence floating high over fault.

     四十五年前的学生们和姑娘们去郊游的情形，到今天②已是难以想象的了。巴黎的近郊已不是当年的模样，半个世纪以来，我们可以称为巴黎郊区生活的那种情况已完全改变了，从前有子规的地方，今天有了火车；从前有游艇的地方，今天有了汽船；从前的人谈圣克鲁①，正如今天的人谈费康②一样，一八六二年的巴黎已是一个以全法国作为近郊的城市了。
①圣克鲁（St.Cloud），巴黎西郊的一个名胜区。
②费康（Fecamp），英法海峡边上的一个港口。

    当时在乡间所能得到的狂欢，那四对情人都一一尽情享受了。他们开始度暑假，这是个和暖爽朗的夏日。宠儿是唯一会写字的人，她在前一天以四个人的名义写了这样一句话给多罗米埃：“青早出门很块乐。”③因此他们早晨五点就起身了。随后，他们坐上公共马车，去圣克鲁，看了一次瀑布，大家叫着说：“有水的时候，一定很好看！”在加斯丹还没有到过的那个黑头饭店里用了午餐，在大池边的五株林里玩了一局七 连环④，登上了第欧根尼的灯笼⑤，到了塞夫勒桥，拿着杏仁饼去押了几次轮盘赌，在普托采了很多花，在讷伊买了些篇管笛，沿途吃着苹果饺，快乐无比。这几个姑娘好象一群逃出笼子的秀眼鸟，喧哗调笑，闹个不休。这是一种狂欢。她们不时和这些青年们摸摸打打。一生中少年时代的陶醉！可爱的岁月！蜻蜓的翅膀颤抖着！呀！无论你是谁，你总忘不了吧！你是否曾穿越树丛，为跟在你后面走来的姣好的头分开枝叶呢？在雨后笑着从湿润的斜坡上滑下去，一个心爱的伴侣牵着你的手，口里喊着：“呀！我崭新的鞋子！弄成什么样子了！”你是否曾有过这样的经历呢？
③这句话的原文里有两个错字，表示宠儿识字不多。
④恰似中国的九连环，但只有七个环。
⑤第欧根尼的灯笼（LanternedeDiogene），当地的一游览场所。

    让我们立刻说出来那件有趣的意外之事，那阵骤雨，对那一群兴高采烈的伴侣，多少有些扫兴，虽然宠儿在出发时曾以长官和慈母式的口吻说过：“孩子们，蜗牛在小路上爬，这是下雨的兆头。”

    这四位姑娘都是美得令人心花怒放的。这位名震一时的古典派老诗人，自己也据有一个美人儿的男子，拉布依斯骑士先生，那天也正在圣克鲁的树林里游览，他看见她们在早晨十点左右打那儿经过，叫道“可惜多了一个”，他心里想到了三位美惠女神①。勃拉什维尔的情人宠儿，二十三岁的那位大姐，在苍翠的虬枝下领头飞跑，跳过泥沟，豪放地跨过荆棘，兴致勃发，俨如田野间的年轻女神。至于瑟芬和大丽，在这场合下她们便互相接近，互相衬托，以显示她们的得意，她们寸步不离，互相倚偎，仿效英国人的姿态；我们与其说那是出于友谊，倒不如说她俩是天生爱俏。最初的几本《妇女时装手册》当时才出版不久，妇女们渐渐崇尚做出忧愁的神情，正如日后的男子们摹仿拜伦一样，女性的头发已开始披散了，瑟芬和大丽的头发是传筒式的。李士多里和法梅依正谈论他们的教师，向芳汀述说戴尔文古先生和勃隆多先生的不同之处。勃拉什维尔，仿佛生来就是专门给宠儿在星期日拿她那件德尔诺式的绒线披肩的。多罗米埃跟在后面走，做那一群人的殿后者。他也是有说有笑的，不过大家总觉得他是家长。他的嬉笑总含有专制君王的意味，他的主要服装是一条象腿式的南京布裤子，用一条铜丝带把裤脚扎在脚底，手里拿一条值两百法郎的粗藤手仗，他一向为所欲为，嘴里也就衔了一根叫做雪茄的那种怪东西。他真是肆无忌惮，竟敢吸烟。
①指希腊神话中的三个美惠女神，优雅而美丽。
②本书作于一八六二年，四十五年前即指一八一七年。

    “这个多罗米埃真是特别，”大家都肃然起敬地那样说，“他竟穿那样的裤子！他真有魄力！”

    至于芳汀，她就是欢乐。她那满口光彩夺目的牙齿明明从上帝那里奉了一道使命，也就是笑的使命。一顶垂着白色长飘带的精致小草帽，她大多时候都拿在手里，极少有戴在头上的时候。一头蓬松的黄发，偏偏喜欢飘舞，容易披散，不时需要整理，仿佛是为使垂杨下的仙女遮羞而生的。她的樱辱，妙音不休，听了令人心醉。她嘴的两角含情脉脉地向上翘着，正如爱里柯尼的古代塑像，带着一种鼓励人放肆的神情；但是她那双迟疑的睫毛蔼然低垂在冶艳的面容上，又仿佛是在说着“不”一样。她周身的装饰具有一种说不出的和谐与夺目的光彩。她穿了件玫瑰紫的毛织薄呢袍，一双闪烁的玲珑古式鞋，鞋带交叉结在两旁挑花的细质白袜上，还穿一件轻罗短衫，那种短衫，是马赛人新创的式样，名叫“加纳佐”①，这个字是“八月十五”的变音，在加纳皮尔大街上是那样念的，它的含义是“晴暖的南国”。其余那三个，我们已说过，比较放纵，都干脆露着胸部，那种装束，一到夏天，在花枝招展的帽子下显得格外妖娆撩人，但是在那种大胆的装饰之外，还有金发美人芳汀的那件薄如蝉翼的“八月十五”，若隐若现，欲盖弥彰，仿佛是一种心裁独出、惹人寻味的艳服。海绿眼睛的塞特子爵夫人所主持的那个有名的情宫，也许会把服装奖颁给这件追求娴静趣味的“八月十五”。最天真的人有时是最高明的。这种事是常常有的。
①“加纳佐”原文是 canezou，和法文“八月十五”（quinzeaout）发音相近。

    光艳的脸蛋，秀丽的侧影，眼睛深蓝，眼皮如凝脂，脚秀而翘，腕、踝都肥瘦适度，妙趣天成，白皙的皮肤四处露着蔚蓝的脉络，两颊鲜润得和小女孩一样，颈脖肥硕如埃纳岛②的朱诺③，后颈窝显得既健壮又柔和，两肩仿佛是库斯图④塑造的，中间有一个撩人的圆涡从轻罗下透出来，多愁而妩媚，又冷若冰霜，状若石刻，色态如满月，这样便是芳停在那朴素的衣服下面，我们可以想见一座塑像，塑像的心中有个灵魂。
②埃伊纳岛（Egine），希腊的一个岛。一八一一年掘出大批塑像。
③朱诺（Junon），众神之后。
④库斯图（Coustou），法国十八世纪的著名雕塑家。

    芳汀很美，但她自己并不怎么意识到。偶然有些深思的人默默地用十全十美的标准来衡量一切事物，他们在这个小小女工的巴黎式的丰采中，也许会想见古代圣乐的和谐吧。这位出自幽谷的姑娘有根基，她在两个方面，风韵和容貌举止方面都是美丽的。风韵是理想中的形象，容貌举止则是理想中的动静。我们已经说过，芳汀就是欢乐，芳汀也就是贞操。一个旁观者，如果仔细研究她，就会知道，她在那种年龄、那种季节、那种爱慕的陶醉中表露出来的，只是一种谦虚谨慎、毫不苟且的神情。芳汀自己也有一些感到惊奇。这种纯洁的惊奇，也就是普赛克和维纳斯①之间的最细微的不同之处。芳汀的手指，修长而白皙，宛如拿着金针拨圣火灰的贞女。虽然她对多罗米埃的一切要求都不拒绝（关于这一 点，我们以后还可以看得更清楚），但她的面貌，在静止时却仍是端庄如处女的，有时，她会突然表现出一种冷峻到近乎严肃的凛然不可侵犯的神情；我们看到她的欢乐突然消失了，不需要经过一个中间阶段而立即进入沉思，世间再没有比这更奇特动人的情景了。这种突如其来的庄重，有时甚至显得严厉，正象女神的鄙夷神情。她的额、鼻和下颏具有线条上的平衡（绝不是比例上的平衡），因而构成了她面部的匀称，在从鼻底到上唇的那一段非常特别的地方，有一种隐约难辨的美妙窝痕，那正是贞静的神秘标志，从前红胡子②之所以爱上在搜寻圣像时发现的一 幅狄安娜③，也正是为了这样一种贞静的美。好吧，爱是一种过失。芳汀却是飘浮在过失上的天贞。
①普塞克（Psyche），希腊神话中的一个美女，爱神的情人。维纳斯（Venus），美神。
②红胡子（Barberousse），十六世纪有两个红胡子，兄弟俩，一个是海盗，一个是土耳其的舰队司令。
③狄安娜（Diane），希腊神话中的猎神。

     That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All nature seemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flower-beds of Saint-Cloud perfumed the air; the breath of the Seine rustled the leaves vaguely; the branches gesticulated in the wind, bees pillaged the jasmines; a whole bohemia of butterflies swooped down upon the yarrow, the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the King of France there was a pack of vagabonds, the birds.

     The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers, the trees, were resplendent.

     And in this community of paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing, chasing butterflies, plucking convolvulus, wetting their pink, open-work stockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all received, to some extent, the kisses of all, with the exception of Fantine, who was hedged about with that vague resistance of hers composed of dreaminess and wildness, and who was in love. "You always have a queer look about you," said Favourite to her.

     Such things are joys.These passages of happy couples are a profound appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth from everything.There was once a fairy who created the fields and forests expressly for those in love,--in that eternal hedge-school of lovers, which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as there are hedges and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among thinkers.The patrician and the knife-grinder, the duke and the peer, the limb of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say in olden times, all are subjects of this fairy.They laugh and hunt, and there is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis--what a transfiguration effected by love!Notaries' clerks are gods.And the little cries, the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on the fly, those jargons which are melodies, those adorations which burst forth in the manner of pronouncing a syllable, those cherries torn from one mouth by another,--all this blazes forth and takes its place among the celestial glories.Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly.They think that this will never come to an end. philosophers, poets, painters, observe these ecstasies and know not what to make of it, so greatly are they dazzled by it.The departure for Cythera! exclaims Watteau; Lancret, the painter of plebeians, contemplates his bourgeois, who have flitted away into the azure sky; Diderot stretches out his arms to all these love idyls, and d'Urfe mingles druids with them.

     After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the King's Square to see a newly arrived plant from India, whose name escapes our memory at this moment, and which, at that epoch, was attracting all paris to Saint-Cloud. It was an odd and charming shrub with a long stem, whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and as fine as threads, were covered with a million tiny white rosettes; this gave the shrub the air of a head of hair studded with flowers. There was always an admiring crowd about it.

     After viewing the shrub, Tholomyes exclaimed, "I offer you asses!" and having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned by way of Vanvres and Issy.At Issy an incident occurred. The truly national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened to be wide open.They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite in his grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous cabinet of mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a millionaire or of Turcaret metamorphosed into a priapus. They had stoutly shaken the swing attached to the two chestnut-trees celebrated by the Abbe de Bernis.As he swung these beauties, one after the other, producing folds in the fluttering skirts which Greuze would have found to his taste, amid peals of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyes, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a melancholy chant, the old ballad gallega, probably inspired by some lovely maid dashing in full flight upon a rope between two trees:--

     "Soy de Badajoz,"Badajoz is my home, Amor me llama,And Love is my name; Toda mi alma, To my eyes in flame, Es en mi ojos,All my soul doth come; porque ensenas, For instruction meet A tuas piernas. I receive at thy feet"
     Fantine alone refused to swing.
     "I don't like to have people put on airs like that," muttered Favourite, with a good deal of acrimony.

     After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight; they crossed the Seine in a boat, and proceeding from passy on foot they reached the barrier of l'Etoile. They had been up since five o'clock that morning, as the reader will remember; but bah! there is no such thing as fatigue on Sunday, said Favourite; on Sunday fatigue does not work.

     About three o'clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness, were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visible above the trees of the Champs Elysees.

     From time to time Favourite exclaimed:--
     "And the surprise?I claim the surprise."
     "patience," replied Tholomyes.

     那天从早到晚都充满了一股朝气。整个自然界仿佛都在过节，在嬉笑。圣克鲁的花坛吐着阵阵香气，塞纳河里的微风拂着翠叶，枝头迎风摇晃，蜂群侵占茉莉花，一群群流浪的蝴蝶在蓍草、苜蓿和野麦中间翩翩狂舞，法兰西国王的森严园林里有成堆的流氓小鸟。
    四对喜气洋洋的情侣，嬉游在日光、田野、花丛、树林中，显得光艳照人。

    这群来自天上的神仙谈着，唱着，互相追逐，舞蹈，扑着蝴蝶，采着牵牛，在深草中沾湿他们的粉红挑花袜；她们是鲜艳的，疯狂的，对人毫无恶念，每个姑娘都随意地接受各个男子的吻，唯有芳汀，固守在她那种多愁易怒、半迎半拒的抵抗里，她的心有所专爱。“你，”宠儿对她说，“你老是这样。”

    这就是欢乐。这一对对情侣的活动是对人生和自然发出的一种强烈的呼声，使天地万物都释放出了爱和光。从前有一个仙女特地为痴情男女创造了草地和树林。从此有情人便永远逃学野游，朝朝暮暮，了无尽期，只要一天有原野和学生，这样的事便一天不会停止。因此思想家无不怀恋春光。王孙公子、磨刀匠、公卿、缙绅、朝廷中人和城市中人（从前有这种说法）都成了那仙女的顺民。大家欢笑，相互追求，空中也洋溢着一种喜悦的光彩，爱真是普天同庆！月下老人便是上帝。娇喘的哼叫声，草丛中的追逐，顺手搂住的纤腰，音乐般的俏骂，用一个音节表现出的热爱，从这张嘴里夺到那张嘴里的樱桃，凡此种种，都烈火似的燃烧着，火焰直冲云霄。美丽的姑娘们甘于牺牲色相，那大概是永无尽期的了。哲学家、诗人和画家望着那种痴情，都不知道如何是好，他们早已眼花缭乱了。华托①号召到爱乡去。平民画家朗克雷②凝视着他那些飞入天空的仕女，狄德罗③赞颂爱情，杜尔菲④甚至说古代的祭司们也不免触景生情。午餐之后，那四对情侣到了所谓皇家方城，在那里看了那株新从印度运来的植物（我一时忘了它的名称，它曾经轰动一时，把巴黎的人全吸引到了圣克鲁），它是一株新奇、悦目、枝长的小树，无数的细如线缕的旁枝蓬松披散，没有叶子，开着盈千累万的小小白色团状花蕾，象一丛插满花朵的头发。成群结队的人不断地去赞赏它。
①华托（Watteau，1634—1721），法国画家。
②朗克雷（Lancret，1690—1743），法国画家。
③狄德罗（Diderot），十八世纪法国唯物主义哲学家，百科全书创编人。
④杜尔菲（d’Urfe，1567—1625），法国小说家。

    看完了树，多罗米埃大声说：“我请你们骑毛驴！”跟赶驴人讲好价钱以后，他们便从凡沃尔和伊西转回来。到了伊西，又有一个意外的收获，当时由军需官布尔甘占用的那个国有公园园门碰巧大开着。他们穿过铁栏门，到岩洞里观望了那个木头人似的隐修僧，在那著名的明镜厅里他们又尝试了那些神秘的小玩意，那是一种诲淫的陷阱，如果是一 个成为巨富的登徒子或变作普利阿普斯①的杜卡莱②，这玩意倒十分相称。在伯尔尼神甫祭过的那两株栗树间，系着一个大秋千网，他们用力荡了一阵。那些美人儿一个个轮流荡着，裙边飘飘，皆大欢喜，戈洛治③如在场，大约又找到他的题材了；正在那时，那位图卢兹人多罗米埃（他和西班牙人的性格有些渊源，图卢兹和托洛萨是姊妹城）以一种情意缠绵的曲调，唱了一首旧时的西班牙歌曲，大致是因为看见一个个美丽的姑娘们在树间的绳索上荡来荡去而有所发吧：我来自巴达雷斯，受了情魔的驱使，我全部的灵魂都在我的眼里。为什么要露出你的腿。
①普处阿普斯（Priape），园艺、畜牧、生育之神。
②杜卡莱（Turcaret），十八世纪初法国喜剧家勒萨日（Lesage）所作喜剧中的主人公，原是仆人。
③戈洛治（Greuze，1725—1805），法国画家。

    只有芳汀一个人不肯去荡秋千。
    “我不喜欢有人装这种样。”宠儿气愤愤地说。扔了毛驴，新的欢乐又有了，他们坐上船，渡过塞纳河，从巴喜走到明星区便门。我们记得，他们是在早晨五点起身的，但是，没有关系！

    “星期日没有什么叫做疲倦，”宠儿说，“疲倦到星期日也去休息了。”三点左右，这四对欢天喜地的朋友，跑上了俄罗斯山①，那是当时在波戎高地上的一种新奇建筑物，我们从爱丽舍广场的树梢上望过去，便能够望见它那蜿蜒曲折的线路。宠儿不时喊道：“还有那新鲜玩意呢？我要那新鲜玩意儿。”
    “不用急。”多罗米埃回答说。
    诈钻营，成了巨富。
①俄罗斯山，一种供人游戏的蜿蜒起伏的架空铁道。

     The Russian mountains having been exhausted, they began to think about dinner; and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became stranded in Bombarda's public house, a branch establishment which had been set up in the Champs-Elysees by that famous restaurant-keeper, Bombarda, whose sign could then be seen in the Rue de Rivoli, near Delorme Alley.

     A large but ugly room, with an alcove and a bed at the end (they had been obliged to put up with this accommodation in view of the Sunday crowd); two windows whence they could survey beyond the elms, the quay and the river; a magnificent August sunlight lightly touching the panes; two tables; upon one of them a triumphant mountain of bouquets, mingled with the hats of men and women; at the other the four couples seated round a merry confusion of platters, dishes, glasses, and bottles; jugs of beer mingled with flasks of wine; very little order on the table, some disorder beneath it;

     "They made beneath the table A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable,"
says Moliere.

     This was the state which the shepherd idyl, begun at five o'clock in the morning, had reached at half-past four in the afternoon. The sun was setting; their appetites were satisfied.

     The Champs-Elysees, filled with sunshine and with people, were nothing but light and dust, the two things of which glory is composed. The horses of Marly, those neighing marbles, were prancing in a cloud of gold.Carriages were going and coming.A squadron of magnificent body-guards, with their clarions at their head, were descending the Avenue de Neuilly; the white flag, showing faintly rosy in the setting sun, floated over the dome of the Tuileries. The place de la Concorde, which had become the place Louis XV. once more, was choked with happy promenaders.Many wore the silver fleur-de-lys suspended from the white-watered ribbon, which had not yet wholly disappeared from button-holes in the year 1817. Here and there choruses of little girls threw to the winds, amid the passersby, who formed into circles and applauded, the then celebrated Bourbon air, which was destined to strike the Hundred Days with lightning, and which had for its refrain:--

     "Rendez-nous notre pere de Gand, Rendez-nous notre pere."
     "Give us back our father from Ghent, Give us back our father."

     Groups of dwellers in the suburbs, in Sunday array, sometimes even decorated with the fleur-de-lys, like the bourgeois, scattered over the large square and the Marigny square, were playing at rings and revolving on the wooden horses; others were engaged in drinking; some journeyman printers had on paper caps; their laughter was audible. Every thing was radiant.It was a time of undisputed peace and profound royalist security; it was the epoch when a special and private report of Chief of police Angeles to the King, on the subject of the suburbs of paris, terminated with these lines:--

     "Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be feared from these people.They are as heedless and as indolent as cats. The populace is restless in the provinces; it is not in paris. These are very pretty men, Sire.It would take all of two of them to make one of your grenadiers.There is nothing to be feared on the part of the populace of paris the capital.It is remarkable that the stature of this population should have diminished in the last fifty years; and the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the Revolution.It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble."

     Prefects of the police do not deem it possible that a cat can transform itself into a lion; that does happen, however, and in that lies the miracle wrought by the populace of paris.Moreover, the cat so despised by Count Angles possessed the esteem of the republics of old. In their eyes it was liberty incarnate; and as though to serve as pendant to the Minerva Aptera of the piraeus, there stood on the public square in Corinth the colossal bronze figure of a cat. The ingenuous police of the Restoration beheld the populace of paris in too "rose-colored" a light; it is not so much of "an amiable rabble" as it is thought.The parisian is to the Frenchman what the Athenian was to the Greek:no one sleeps more soundly than he, no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy than he, no one can better assume the air of forgetfulness; let him not be trusted nevertheless; he is ready for any sort of cool deed; but when there is glory at the end of it, he is worthy of admiration in every sort of fury. Give him a pike, he will produce the 10th of August; give him a gun, you will have Austerlitz.He is Napoleon's stay and Danton's resource. Is it a question of country, he enlists; is it a question of liberty, he tears up the pavements.Beware! his hair filled with wrath, is epic; his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a chlamys.Take care! he will make of the first Rue Grenetat which comes to hand Caudine Forks. When the hour strikes, this man of the faubourgs will grow in stature; this little man will arise, and his gaze will be terrible, and his breath will become a tempest, and there will issue forth from that slender chest enough wind to disarrange the folds of the Alps. It is, thanks to the suburban man of paris, that the Revolution, mixed with arms, conquers Europe.He sings; it is his delight. proportion his song to his nature, and you will see!As long as he has for refrain nothing but la Carmagnole, he only overthrows Louis XVI.; make him sing the Marseillaise, and he will free the world.

     This note jotted down on the margin of Angles' report, we will return to our four couples.The dinner, as we have said, was drawing to its close.

     俄罗斯山溜完之后，他们想到了晚餐，毕竟也还是有些疲倦了，兴高采烈的八个神仙们在蓬巴达酒家停下来了，那酒家是有名的饭店老板蓬巴达在爱丽舍广场设下的分店，当时人们可以从里沃利街，德乐麦通道侧边看见它的招牌。

    一间房间，宽敞而丑陋，里面有壁厢，厢底有床（由于星期日酒楼人满，只得忍受那样的地方）；两扇窗子，凭窗可以眺望榆树外面的河水和河岸，一片八月的明媚阳光正照射在窗口；两张桌子，一张上面有着堆积如山的鲜花以及男人和女人的帽子，另一张，则由这四对朋友占了，他们团团坐在一堆喜气洋洋的杯盘瓶碟四周，啤酒罐和葡萄酒瓶杂陈，桌上有点乱，桌下更乱。

    “他们用脚在桌子下面搞得乒零乓朗一团糟。”莫里哀说过。这就是从早晨五点开始的那伙郊游，到了下午四点半钟时的情形。

    太阳西沉了，意兴也阑珊了。充满了日光和人群的爱丽舍广场只见阳光和灰尘，那是构成光辉的两样东西。马尔利雕刻的一群石马，在金粉似的烟尘中立在后蹄上，引颈长嘶。华丽的马车川流不息。一队堂皇富丽的近卫骑兵，随着喇叭，从讷伊林荫大道走下来，一面白旗①在斜阳返照中带着淡红颜色，在杜伊勒里宫的圆顶上拂荡。协和广场（当时已经恢复旧名，叫路易十五广场）上人山人海，个个喜气洋洋。许多人的衣纽上还佩着一朵吊在一条白闪缎带上的银百合花，那种东西，到一八一七年尚未完全绝迹。这儿那儿，成群的小女孩，在过路闲人的围观鼓掌声中跳着团圆舞，迎风唱着一种波旁舞曲，那种舞曲，本是用来打倒百日帝政的，直到当时还流行，其中的叠句是：送还我们根特②的伯伯，送还我们的伯伯。
①波旁王朝的旗帜。
②根特（Gand），比利时城市，百日帝政期间，路易十八逃亡在那里。

    一群群近郊居民，穿着节日的漂亮服装，有些还模仿绅士，也佩上一朵百合花，四散在大方场和马里尼方场上，玩着七连环游戏或是骑着木马兜圆圈，其余一些人喝着酒；印刷厂里的几个学徒，戴着纸帽，又说又笑。处处都光辉灿烂。无可否认，那确是国泰民安，君权巩固的时代。警署署长昂格勒斯曾向国王递过一本私人密奏，谈到巴黎四郊的情形，他最后的几句话是这样的：“陛下，根据各方面的缜密观察，这些人民不足为畏。他们都和猫儿一样，懒惰驯良。外省的下民好骚动，巴黎的人民却不然。这全是些小民，陛下，要两个这样的小民叠起来，才抵得上一个近卫军士。在首都的民众方面，完全没有可虑的地方。五十 年来，人民的身材又缩小了，这是值得注意的，巴黎四郊的人民，比革命前更矮小了。他们不足为害。

    总而言之，这都是些贱民，驯良的贱民。”警署署长们是绝不相信猫能变成狮子的，然而事实上却是可能的，而且那正是巴黎人民的奇迹。就拿猫来说吧，昂格勒斯那样瞧不起猫。猫却受到古代共和国的尊重，他们认为猫是自由的化身，在科林斯①城的公共广场上，就有一只极大的紫铜猫，仿佛正是和比雷埃夫斯②的那尊无翅膀的密涅瓦塑像作对衬一般。复辟时代的警察太天真，把巴黎的人民看得太“易与”了。恰恰相反，他们绝不是“驯良的贱民”，巴黎人之于法兰西人，正如雅典人之于希腊人，他比任何人都睡得好些，他比任何人都确实要来得轻佻懒惰些，没有人比他更显得健忘，但是决不可以为他们就是可靠的，他尽可以百般疏懒，但是一旦光荣在望，他便会奋不顾身，什么都会干的。给他一支矛吧，他可以干出八月十日③的事，给他一支熗吧，他可以再有一次奥斯特里茨。他是拿破仑的支柱，丹东④的后盾。国家发生了问题？他捐躯行伍；自由发生了问题？他喋血街头；留神！他的怒发令人难忘；他的布衫可以和希腊的宽袍媲美，他会象在格尔内塔街那样，迫使强敌投降。
①科林斯（Corinthe），古希腊城市。
②比雷奥夫斯（Piree），希腊港口。
③一七九二年八月十日，巴黎人民攻入王宫，逮捕国王，推翻了君主制。
④丹东（Danton），雅各宾派的右翼领袖。

    当心！时机一到，这个郊区的居民就会变大的。这小子会站起来，怒目向人，他吐出的气将变成飓风，从他孱弱的胸中，会呼出足够的风，来改变阿尔卑斯山的丘壑。革命之所能够战胜欧洲，全赖军队里巴黎郊区的居民。他歌唱，那是他的欢乐。你让他的歌适合他的性格，你看着吧！如果他唱来唱去只有《卡玛尼奥拉》①一首歌，他当然只能推倒路易十六；但你如果叫他唱《马塞曲》，他便能拯救全世界。我们在昂格勒斯奏本的边上写了这段评语以后，再回头来看我们的那四对情人。我们说过，晚餐已经用完了。
①《卡玛尼奥拉》（Carmagnolle），法国大革命时期歌曲之一，针对玛丽?安东尼特而作。

     Chat at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce one as the other; the chat of love is a cloud; the chat at table is smoke.
     Fameuil and Dahlia were humming.Tholomyes was drinking. Zephine was laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing a wooden trumpet which he had purchased at Saint-Cloud.

     Favourite gazed tenderly at Blachevelle and said:--
     "Blachevelle, I adore you."
     This called forth a question from Blachevelle:--

     "What would you do, Favourite, if I were to cease to love you?"
     "I!" cried Favourite."Ah!Do not say that even in jest! If you were to cease to love me, I would spring after you, I would scratch you, I should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you arrested."

     Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a man who is tickled in his self-love. Favourite resumed:--
     "Yes, I would scream to the police!Ah!I should not restrain myself, not at all!Rabble!"
     Blachevelle threw himself back in his chair, in an ecstasy, and closed both eyes proudly.

     Dahlia, as she ate, said in a low voice to Favourite, amid the uproar:--
     "So you really idolize him deeply, that Blachevelle of yours?"

     "I?I detest him," replied Favourite in the same tone, seizing her fork again."He is avaricious.I love the little fellow opposite me in my house.He is very nice, that young man; do you know him? One can see that he is an actor by profession.I love actors. As soon as he comes in, his mother says to him:`Ah! mon Dieu! my peace of mind is gone.There he goes with his shouting.But, my dear, you are splitting my head!'So he goes up to rat-ridden garrets, to black holes, as high as he can mount, and there he sets to singing, declaiming, how do I know what? so that he can be heard down stairs! He earns twenty sous a day at an attorney's by penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-pas. Ah! he is very nice.He idolizes me so, that one day when he saw me making batter for some pancakes, he said to me:`Mamselle, make your gloves into fritters, and I will eat them.'It is only artists who can say such things as that.Ah! he is very nice. I am in a fair way to go out of my head over that little fellow. Never mind; I tell Blachevelle that I adore him--how I lie!Hey!How I do lie!"

     Favourite paused, and then went on:--

     "I am sad, you see, Dahlia.It has done nothing but rain all summer; the wind irritates me; the wind does not abate.Blachevelle is very stingy; there are hardly any green peas in the market; one does not know what to eat.I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and that disgusts me with life."

     餐桌上的谈话和情侣们的谈话一样，是不可捉摸的，如果说情侣们的谈话是云霞，餐桌上的谈话则是烟雾。

    法梅依和大丽哼着歌儿，多罗米埃喝着酒，瑟芬笑着，芳汀微笑着。李士多里吹着在圣克鲁买来的木喇叭。宠儿脉脉含情地望着勃拉什维尔说道：“勃拉什维尔。我爱你。”这话引起了勃拉什维尔的一个问题。

    “宠儿，假使我不爱你了，你会怎样呢？”
    “我吗！”宠儿喊着说，“唉！别说这种话，哪怕是开玩笑，也不要说这种话！假使你不爱我了，我就跳到你后面，抓你的皮，扯你的头发，把水淋到你的身上，让你吃官司。”

    勃拉什维尔自认为多情地微笑了一下，正如一个自尊心获得极端满足而感到舒服的人一样。宠儿又说：“是呀！我会叫警察！哼！你以为我有什么事做不出来的！坏种！”勃拉什维尔受宠若惊，仰在椅上，沾沾自喜地闭上了眼睛。大丽吃个不停，从喧杂的语声中对宠儿说：“看起来，你对你的勃拉什维尔不是很痴心吗？”

    “我，我讨厌他，”宠儿用了同样的语调回答，重又拿起她的叉子。

    “他舍不得花钱。我爱在我对面住的那个小伙子。那小子长得漂亮得很，你认得他吗？他很有做演员的气质。我喜欢演员。他一回家，他妈就说：‘呀！我的上帝！我又不得安宁了。他要叫起来了。唉，我的朋友，你要叫破我的脑袋吗！’因为他一到家里，便到那些住耗子的阁楼上，那些黑洞里，越高的地方越好，他在那里又唱又朗诵，谁知道他搞些什么！下面的人都听得见。他在一个律师家里写讼词，每天已能赚二十个苏了。他父亲是圣雅克教堂里的唱诗人。呀！他长得真漂亮。他已经爱我到了这种地步，有一天，他看见我在调灰面做薄饼，他对我说：‘小姐，您拿您的手套做些饼，我全都会吃下去。’世界上只有艺术家才会说这样的话。呀！他生得非常好。我已经要为那小白脸发疯了。这不打紧，我对勃拉什维尔还是说我爱他。我多么会撒谎！你说是吗？我多么会撒谎！”

    宠儿喘了口气，又继续说：
    “大丽，你知道吗？我心里烦得很。落了一夏季的雨，这风真叫我受不了，风又吹不熄我心头的火，勃拉什维尔是个小气鬼，菜场里又不大有碗豆卖，他只知道吃，正好象英国人说的，我害‘忧郁帛了，奶油又那么贵！并且，你看，真是笑话，我们竟会在有床铺的房间里吃饭，我还不如死了的好。”

     In the meantime, while some sang, the rest talked together tumultuously all at once; it was no longer anything but noise. Tholomyes intervened.

     "Let us not talk at random nor too fast," he exclaimed. "Let us reflect, if we wish to be brilliant.Too much improvisation empties the mind in a stupid way.Running beer gathers no froth. No haste, gentlemen.Let us mingle majesty with the feast.Let us eat with meditation; let us make haste slowly.Let us not hurry. Consider the springtime; if it makes haste, it is done for; that is to say, it gets frozen.Excess of zeal ruins peach-trees and apricot-trees. Excess of zeal kills the grace and the mirth of good dinners.No zeal, gentlemen!Grimod de la Reyniere agrees with Talleyrand."

     A hollow sound of rebellion rumbled through the group.
     "Leave us in peace, Tholomyes," said Blachevelle.
     "Down with the tyrant!" said Fameuil.
     "Bombarda, Bombance, and Bambochel!" cried Listolier.
     "Sunday exists," resumed Fameuil.
     "We are sober," added Listolier.

     "Tholomyes," remarked Blachevelle, "contemplate my calmness (mon calme)."
     "You are the Marquis of that," retorted Tholomyes.
     This mediocre play upon words produced the effect of a stone in a pool. The Marquis de Montcalm was at that time a celebrated royalist. All the frogs held their peace.

     "Friends," cried Tholomyes, with the accent of a man who had recovered his empire, "Come to yourselves.This pun which has fallen from the skies must not be received with too much stupor. Everything which falls in that way is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect.The pun is the dung of the mind which soars. The jest falls, no matter where; and the mind after producing a piece of stupidity plunges into the azure depths.A whitish speck flattened against the rock does not prevent the condor from soaring aloft. Far be it from me to insult the pun!I honor it in proportion to its merits; nothing more.All the most august, the most sublime, the most charming of humanity, and perhaps outside of humanity, have made puns.Jesus Christ made a pun on St. peter, Moses on Isaac, AEschylus on polynices, Cleopatra on Octavius.And observe that Cleopatra's pun preceded the battle of Actium, and that had it not been for it, no one would have remembered the city of Toryne, a Greek name which signifies a ladle.That once conceded, I return to my exhortation.I repeat, brothers, I repeat, no zeal, no hubbub, no excess; even in witticisms, gayety, jollities, or plays on words. Listen to me.I have the prudence of Amphiaraus and the baldness of Caesar.There must be a limit, even to rebuses.Est modus in rebus.

     "There must be a limit, even to dinners.You are fond of apple turnovers, ladies; do not indulge in them to excess. Even in the matter of turnovers, good sense and art are requisite. Gluttony chastises the glutton, Gula punit Gulax.Indigestion is charged by the good God with preaching morality to stomachs. And remember this:each one of our passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full.In all things the word finis must be written in good season; self-control must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt must be drawn on appetite; one must set one's own fantasy to the violin, and carry one's self to the post.The sage is the man who knows how, at a given moment, to effect his own arrest.Have some confidence in me, for I have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law, according to the verdict of my examinations, for I know the difference between the question put and the question pending, for I have sustained a thesis in Latin upon the manner in which torture was administered at Rome at the epoch when Munatius Demens was quaestor of the parricide; because I am going to be a doctor, apparently it does not follow that it is absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend you to moderation in your desires.It is true that my name is Felix Tholomyes; I speak well.Happy is he who, when the hour strikes, takes a heroic resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origenes."

     Favourite listened with profound attention.
     "Felix," said she, "what a pretty word!I love that name. It is Latin; it means prosper."
     Tholomyes went on:--

     "Quirites, gentlemen, caballeros, my friends.Do you wish never to feel the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing more simple.Here is the receipt:lemonade, excessive exercise, hard labor; work yourself to death, drag blocks, sleep not, hold vigil, gorge yourself with nitrous beverages, and potions of nymphaeas; drink emulsions of poppies and agnus castus; season this with a strict diet, starve yourself, and add thereto cold baths, girdles of herbs, the application of a plate of lead, lotions made with the subacetate of lead, and fomentations of oxycrat."

     "I prefer a woman," said Listolier.
     "Woman," resumed Tholomyes; "distrust her.Woe to him who yields himself to the unstable heart of woman!Woman is perfidious and disingenuous.She detests the serpent from professional jealousy. The serpent is the shop over the way."

     "Tholomyes!" cried Blachevelle, "you are drunk!"
     "pardieu," said Tholomyes.
     "Then be gay," resumed Blachevelle.
     "I agree to that," responded Tholomyes.
     And, refilling his glass, he rose.

     "Glory to wine!Nunc te, Bacche, canam!pardon me ladies; that is Spanish.And the proof of it, senoras, is this:like people, like cask.The arrobe of Castile contains sixteen litres; the cantaro of Alicante, twelve; the almude of the Canaries, twenty-five; the cuartin of the Balearic Isles, twenty-six; the boot of Tzar peter, thirty.Long live that Tzar who was great, and long live his boot, which was still greater!Ladies, take the advice of a friend; make a mistake in your neighbor if you see fit. The property of love is to err.A love affair is not made to crouch down and brutalize itself like an English serving-maid who has callouses on her knees from scrubbing.It is not made for that; it errs gayly, our gentle love.It has been said, error is human; I say, error is love.Ladies, I idolize you all.O Zephine, O Josephine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not all askew.You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has sat down by mistake.As for Favourite, O nymphs and muses! one day when Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue Guerin-Boisseau, he espied a beautiful girl with white stockings well drawn up, which displayed her legs.This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell in love.The one he loved was Favourite.O Favourite, thou hast Ionian lips.There was a Greek painter named Euphorion, who was surnamed the painter of the lips.That Greek alone would have been worthy to paint thy mouth.Listen! before thee, there was never a creature worthy of the name.Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is thou who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the beautiful woman.O Favourite, I cease to address you as `thou,' because I pass from poetry to prose. You were speaking of my name a little while ago.That touched me; but let us, whoever we may be, distrust names.They may delude us. I am called Felix, and I am not happy.Words are liars.Let us not blindly accept the indications which they afford us.It would be a mistake to write to Liege(2) for corks, and to pau for gloves. Miss Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa. A flower should smell sweet, and woman should have wit.I say nothing of Fantine; she is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person; she is a phantom possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun, who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without very well knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her eyes fixed on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds than are in existence.O Fantine, know this: I, Tholomyes, I am all illusion; but she does not even hear me, that blond maid of Chimeras! as for the rest, everything about her is freshness, suavity, youth, sweet morning light.O Fantine, maid worthy of being called Marguerite or pearl, you are a woman from the beauteous Orient.Ladies, a second piece of advice: do not marry; marriage is a graft; it takes well or ill; avoid that risk.But bah! what am I saying?I am wasting my words. Girls are incurable on the subject of marriage, and all that we wise men can say will not prevent the waistcoat-makers and the shoe-stitchers from dreaming of husbands studded with diamonds. Well, so be it; but, my beauties, remember this, you eat too much sugar. You have but one fault, O woman, and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling sex, your pretty little white teeth adore sugar. Now, heed me well, sugar is a salt.All salts are withering. Sugar is the most desiccating of all salts; it sucks the liquids of the blood through the veins; hence the coagulation, and then the solidification of the blood; hence tubercles in the lungs, hence death. That is why diabetes borders on consumption.Then, do not crunch sugar, and you will live.I turn to the men:gentlemen, make conquest, rob each other of your well-beloved without remorse.Chassez across. In love there are no friends.Everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open.No quarter, war to the death! a pretty woman is a casus belli; a pretty woman is flagrant misdemeanor. All the invasions of history have been determined by petticoats. Woman is man's right.Romulus carried off the Sabines; William carried off the Saxon women; Caesar carried off the Roman women.The man who is not loved soars like a vulture over the mistresses of other men; and for my own part, to all those unfortunate men who are widowers, I throw the sublime proclamation of Bonaparte to the army of Italy: "Soldiers, you are in need of everything; the enemy has it."

     (2) Liege:a cork-tree. pau:a jest on peau, skin.
     Tholomyes paused.
     "Take breath, Tholomyes," said Blachevelle.

     At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier and Fameuil, struck up to a plaintive air, one of those studio songs composed of the first words which come to hand, rhymed richly and not at all, as destitute of sense as the gesture of the tree and the sound of the wind, which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated and take their flight with them.This is the couplet by which the group replied to Tholomyes' harangue:--

     "The father turkey-cocks so grave Some money to an agent gave, That master good Clermont-Tonnerre Might be made pope on Saint Johns' day fair. But this good Clermont could not be Made pope, because no priest was he; And then their agent, whose wrath burned, With all their money back returned."

     This was not calculated to calm Tholomyes' improvisation; he emptied his glass, filled, refilled it, and began again:--

     "Down with wisdom!Forget all that I have said.Let us be neither prudes nor prudent men nor prudhommes.I propose a toast to mirth; be merry.Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and the digest.Let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female!Joy in the depths!Live, O creation!The world is a great diamond.I am happy.The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere!The nightingale is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee!O Luxembourg!O Georgics of the Rue Madame, and of the Allee de l'Observatoire! O pensive infantry soldiers! O all those charming nurses who, while they guard the children, amuse themselves!The pampas of America would please me if I had not the arcades of the Odeon.My soul flits away into the virgin forests and to the savannas.All is beautiful.The flies buzz in the sun. The sun has sneezed out the humming bird.Embrace me, Fantine!"

     He made a mistake and embraced Favourite.

     这时，有几个人在唱着歌，其余的人都说着话，稀里哗啦，也不分个先后，到处只有一片乱嘈嘈的声音。多罗米埃开口了：“我们不该胡说八道，也不该说得太快，”他大声说，“让我们想想，我们是不是想要卖弄自己的口才。过份地信口开河只会浪费精力，那是再傻也没有的了。流着的啤酒堆不起泡沫。先生们，不要性急。我们吃喝，也得有吃喝的气派。让我们细心地吃，慢慢地喝。我们不必匆忙。你们看春天吧，如果它来得太快，它就烧起来了，就是说，一切植物都不能发芽了。过份的热会损害桃花和杏花。过份的热也会消灭盛宴的雅兴和欢乐。先生们，心不可热！拉雷尼埃尔①和塔列朗的意见都是这样。”从那堆人里发出了一阵震耳欲聋的反抗声。
①拉雷尼埃尔（GrimoddelaReyniere），巴黎的烹调专家，著有食谱。

    “多罗米埃，不要闹！”勃拉什维尔说。
    “打倒专制魔王！”法梅依说。
    “蓬巴达②！蓬彭斯③！彭博什④！”“星期日还没完呢。”法梅依又说。
    “我们并没有乱来。”李士多里说。
    “多罗米埃，”勃拉什维尔说，“请注意我的安静态度。”
    “在这方面，你算得上是侯爷。”这句小小的隐语竟好象是一块丢在池塘里的石头。安静山⑤侯爵是当时一个大名鼎鼎的保皇党。蛙群声息全没了。
②蓬巴达（Bombarda），酒家。
③蓬彭斯（Bombance），盛筵。
④彭博什（Bambocbhe，1592—1645），荷兰画家。
⑤“安静山”（Montcalm）和上面勃拉杆维尔所说的“我的安静”（moncalme）同音。

    “朋友们，”多罗米埃以一个重获首领地位的人的口吻大声说，“安静安静。见了这种天上掉下来的玩笑也不必太惊谎。凡是这种天上掉下来的东西，不一定是值得兴奋和敬佩的。隐语是飞着的精灵所遗的粪。笑话四处都有，精灵在说笑一通之后，又飞上天去了。神鹰遗了一堆白色的秽物在岩石上，仍旧翱翔自如。我毫不褒渎隐语。我仅就它价值的高下，给以相当的敬意而已。人类中，也许是人类以外，最尊严、最卓越和最可亲的人都说过隐语。耶稣基督说过一句有关圣彼得的隐语。摩西在谈到以撒、埃斯库罗斯、波吕尼刻斯时，克娄巴特拉在谈到屋大维时也都使用过隐语。还要提请你们注意，克娄巴特拉的隐语是在亚克兴①战争以前说的，假使没有它，也就不会有人记得多临城，多临在希腊语中只是一个勺而已。这件事交代之后，我再回头来说我的劝告词。我的弟兄们，我再说一遍，即使是在说俏皮话、诙谐、笑谑和隐语时，也不可过于热心，不可嚣张，不可过份。诸位听我讲，我有安菲阿拉俄斯②的谨慎和恺撒的秃顶。
①亚克兴（Actium），公元前三一年罗马舰队在屋大维率领下，击败叛将安敦尼于此。
②安菲阿拉俄斯（Amphiaraus），攻打底比斯的七英雄之一。

    即使是猜谜语，也该有个限度。这就是拉丁话所谓的“Estmodusinrebus。即使是饮食，也该有节制。女士们，你们喜欢苹果饺，但别吃得太多了。就是吃饺，也该有限度和艺术手法。贪多嚼不烂，好比蛇吞象。胃病总是因为贪吃所至。疳积病是上帝派来教育胃的。并且你们应当记住这一点：我们的每一种欲念，甚至包括爱情在内，也都有胃口，不可太饱。在任何事情上，都该在适当的时候写上‘完’字；在紧急的时候，我们应当自行约束，推上食量的门闩，抑制自己的妄念，并且自请处罚。知道在适当的时候自动约束自己的人就是聪明人。对于我，你们不妨多少有点信心，因为我学过一点法律，我的考试成绩可以证明，因为我知道存案和悬案间的差别，因为我用拉丁文做过一篇论文，论《缪纳修斯?德门任弑君者的度支官时期的罗马刑法》，因为我快做博士了，照说，从这以后，我就一定不会是个蠢才了。我劝告你们，应当节欲。我说的是好话，真实可靠得和我叫斐利克斯?多罗米埃一样。时机一到，就下定决心，象西拉③或奥利金④那样，激流勇退，那样才是真正快乐的人。”
③西拉（Sylla），即苏拉（Sulla），公元前一世纪罗马的独裁者。
④奥利金（Origene，约前 185—254），基督教神学家。

    宠儿聚精会神地听着。
    “斐利克斯！”她说，“这是个多么漂亮的名字！我爱这个名字。这是拉丁文，作‘兴盛’解释。”多罗米埃接下去说：“公民们，先生们，少爷们①，朋友们！你们想要摒绝床第之事，放弃儿女之情而毫不冲动吗？再简单也没有。这就是药方：柠檬水，过度的体操，强迫劳动，疲劳，负重，不睡觉，守夜，多饮含硝质的饮料和白荷花汤，尝茑栗油和马鞭草油，厉行节食，饿肚子，继之以冷水俗，使用草索束身，佩带铅块，用醋酸铅擦身，用醋汤作热敷。”
①这三种称呼，原文用的是拉丁文、英文和西班牙文：guirites，gentlemen，caballeros.

    “我宁愿请教女人。”李士多里说。
    “女人！”多罗米埃说，“你们得小心。女人水性杨花，信赖她们，那简直是自讨苦吃。女人是邪淫寡信的。她们恨蛇，那只是出于同行的妒嫉心。蛇和女人是对门邻居。”
    “多罗米埃！”勃拉什维尔喊着说，“你喝醉了！”
    “可不是！”多罗米埃说。
    “那么，你乐一乐吧。”勃拉什维尔又说。

    “我同意。”多罗米埃回答。于是，他一面斟满酒，一面站了起来：“光荣属于美酒！现在，酒神，请喝！②对不起，诸位小姐，这是西班牙文。证据呢，女士们，就是这样。怎样的民族就有怎样的酒桶。卡斯蒂利亚③的亚洛伯，盛十六公升，阿利坎特的康达罗十二公升，加那利群岛的亚尔缪德二十五公升，巴利阿里④群岛的苦亚丹二十六公升，沙皇彼得的普特三十公升。伟大的彼得万岁，他那更伟大的普特万万岁。诸位女士们，请让我以朋友资格奉劝一句话：你们应当随心所欲，广结良缘。
②“现在，酒神，请喝！”原文为西班牙文 Nuncte，Bacche，canam！
③卡斯蒂利亚（Castille），在西班牙中部，十一世纪时成立王国，十五世纪时和其他几个小王国合并成为西班牙王国。
④巴利阿里群岛（Baleares），在地中海西端，属西班牙。

    爱情的本质就是胡碰乱撞。爱神不需要象一个膝盖上擦起疙瘩的英国女仆那样死死蹲在一处。那位温柔的爱神生来并不是这样的，它嘻嘻哈哈到处乱撞，别人说过，撞错总也还是人情；我说，撞错总也还是爱情。诸位女士，我崇拜你们中的每一位。呵瑟芬，啊，约瑟芬，俏皮娘儿，假使你不象那样撅着嘴，你就更迷人了。你那神气好象是被谁在你脸上无意中坐了一下子似的。至于宠儿，呵，山林中的仙女和缪斯！勃拉什维尔一天走过格雷—巴梭街的小溪边，看见一个美貌姑娘，露着腿，穿着一双白袜，拉得紧绷绷的。这个样子合了他的意，于是勃拉什维尔入迷了。他爱的那个人儿便是宠儿。呵！宠儿！你有爱奥尼亚人的嘴唇。从前有个希腊画家叫欧风里翁，别人给了他个绰号，叫作嘴唇画家。只有那个希腊人才配画你的嘴唇。听我说！在你以前，没有一个人是够得上他一画的。你和美神一样是为得到苹果而生的，或者说，和夏娃一样，是为吃苹果而生的。美是由你开始的。我刚才提到了夏娃，夏娃是你创造出来的。你有资格获得‘发明美女’的证书。呵，宠儿，我不再称您为你了。因为我要由诗歌转入散文了。刚才您谈到我的名字，您打动了我的心弦，但是无论我们是什么人，对于名字，总不宜轻信。名不一定符实。我叫做斐利克斯，但是我并不快乐。字是骗人的。我们不要盲目接受它的含义。

    写信到列日①去买软木塞，到波城②去买皮手套，那才荒唐呢。密斯③大丽，我如果是您的话，我就要叫做玫瑰，花应当有香味，女人应当有智慧。至于芳汀，我不打算说什么，她是一个多幻象、多梦想、多思虑、多感触的人，一个具有仙女的体态和信女的贞洁的小精灵；她失足在风流女郎的队伍里，又要藏身在幻想中，她唱歌，却又祈祷，又望着天空，但又不大知道她所渴望的是什么，也不大知道她所作的究竟是什么，她望着天空，自以为生活在大花园里，以为到处是花和鸟，而实际上花和鸟并不多。呵，芳汀，您应当知道这一点：我，多罗米埃，我只是一种幻象，但是这位心思缥缈的黄发女郎，她并没有听见我说话！然而她有的全是光艳、趣味、青春、柔美的晨曦。呵，芳汀，您是一个值得称为白菊或明珠的姑娘，您是一个满身珠光宝气的妇女。诸位女士，还有第二个忠告：你们决不要嫁人；结婚犹如接木，效果好坏，很不一 定，你们不必自寻苦吃。但是，哎呀！我在这里胡说什么？我失言了。姑娘们在配偶问题上是不可救药的。我们这些明眼人所能说的一切，绝不足以防止那些做背心、做鞋子的姑娘们去梦想那些金玉满堂的良人。
①烈日（Liege），比利时城名，和“软木”（liege）同音。
②波城（Pau），法国城名，和“皮”（peau）同音。
③密斯（miss），英语，意为“小姐”。

    不管它，就这样吧；但是，美人们，请牢记这一点：你们的糖，吃得太多了。呵，妇女们，你们只有一个错误：就是好嚼糖。呵，啮齿类的女性，你的皓齿多么喜爱糖呵。那么，好好地听我讲，糖是一种盐。一切盐都吸收水份。糖在各种盐里具有最富于吸收水分的能力。它通过血管，把血液里的水分提出来，于是血液凝结，由凝结而凝固，而得肺结核，直至死亡。因此，糖尿病常和痨病并发。因此，你们不要嚼糖，就可长寿了！现在我转到男子方面来。先生们，多多霸占妇女。在你们彼此之间不妨无所顾忌地相互霸占爱人。猎艳，乱交，情场中无所谓朋友。凡是有一个漂亮女子的地方，争夺总是公开的；无分区域，大家拚个你死我活！一个漂亮女子，便是一场战争的导火线，一个漂亮女子，便是一 场明目张胆的盗窃。历来一切的劫掠都是在亵衣上发起的。罗慕洛掳过萨宾妇人①，威廉掳过萨克森妇人，恺撒掳过罗马妇人。没有女子爱着的男子，总好象饿鹰那样，在别人的情妇头上翱翔。至于我，我向一切没有家室的可怜虫介绍波拿巴的《告意大利大军书》：‘士兵们，你们什么也没有。敌人却有。’”多罗米埃的话中断了。
①罗慕洛（Romulus，约生于 460年），西罗马帝国的最后一个皇帝（475—476）。萨宾。意大利古国名。

    “喘口气吧，多罗米埃。”勃拉什维尔说。同时，勃拉什维尔开始唱一支悲伤的歌，李士多里和法梅依随声和着，那种歌是用从车间里信手拈来的歌词编的，音韵似乎很丰富，其实却全然没有音韵；意义空虚，有如风声树影，是从烟斗的雾气中产生出来的，因此也就和雾气一同飘散消失。下面便是那群人答复多罗米埃的演说词的一节：几个荒唐老头子，拿些银子交给狗腿子，要教克雷蒙—东纳①先生，圣约翰节日坐上教皇的位子，克雷蒙—东纳先生不能当教皇，原来他不是教士，狗腿子气冲冲，送还他们的银子。
①克雷蒙—东纳（Clemont—Tonnerre），法国多菲内地区一大家族，其中最著名者一是红衣主教，一是伯爵。

    那种歌并不能让多罗米埃的随机应变的口才停歇下来。他干了杯，再斟上一杯，又说起话来。

    “打倒圣人！我说的话，你们全不必放在心上。我们不要清规戒律，不要束手束脚，不要谨小慎微。我要为欢乐浮一大白，让我们狂欢吧！让我们拿放荡和酒肉来补足我们的法律课。吃喝，消化。让查士丁尼②作雄的，让酒囊饭袋作雌的。喜气弥漫苍穹啊！造物主！祝你长生！地球是一颗大金刚钻！我快乐。雀鸟真够劲，遍地都是盛会！黄莺儿是一个任人欣赏的艾勒维奥③。夏日，我向你致敬。呵，卢森堡，呵，夫人街和天文台路的竹枝词！呵，神魂颠倒的丘八！呵，那些看守孩子又拿孩子寻开心的漂亮女佣人。如果我没有奥德翁①的长廊，我也许会喜欢美洲的草原吧。我的灵魂飞向森林中的处女地和广漠的平原。一切都是美的。青蝇在日光中萦萦飞舞。太阳打喷嚏打出了蜂雀。吻我吧，芳停”他弄错了，吻了宠儿。
②查士丁尼（Justinien，483—565），拜占庭皇帝，编有《法家言类纂》（digeste），书名与“消化”（digestion）近似。
③艾勒维奥（Elleviou），当时法国的一个著名歌唱家。
①奥德翁（Odeon），指奥德翁戏院，一七九七年成立。

     "The dinners are better at Edon's than at Bombarda's," exclaimed Zephine.
     "I prefer Bombarda to Edon," declared Blachevelle."There is more luxury.It is more Asiatic.Look at the room downstairs; there are mirrors (glaces) on the walls."

     "I prefer them (glaces, ices) on my plate," said Favourite.
     Blachevelle persisted:--
     "Look at the knives.The handles are of silver at Bombarda's and of bone at Edon's. Now, silver is more valuable than bone."

     "Except for those who have a silver chin," observed Tholomyes.
     He was looking at the dome of the Invalides, which was visible from Bombarda's windows.
     A pause ensued.
     "Tholomyes," exclaimed Fameuil, "Listolier and I were having a discussion just now."

     "A discussion is a good thing," replied Tholomyes; "a quarrel is better."
     "We were disputing about philosophy."
     "Well?"
     "Which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza?"
     "Desaugiers," said Tholomyes.

     This decree pronounced, he took a drink, and went on:--

     "I consent to live.All is not at an end on earth since we can still talk nonsense.For that I return thanks to the immortal gods. We lie.One lies, but one laughs.One affirms, but one doubts. The unexpected bursts forth from the syllogism.That is fine. There are still human beings here below who know how to open and close the surprise box of the paradox merrily.This, ladies, which you are drinking with so tranquil an air is Madeira wine, you must know, from the vineyard of Coural das Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen fathoms above the level of the sea. Attention while you drink! three hundred and seventeen fathoms! and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eating-house keeper, gives you those three hundred and seventeen fathoms for four francs and fifty centimes."

     Again Fameuil interrupted him:--
     "Tholomyes, your opinions fix the law.Who is your favorite author?"
     "Ber--"
     "Quin?"
     "No; Choux."
     And Tholomyes continued:--

     "Honor to Bombarda!He would equal Munophis of Elephanta if he could but get me an Indian dancing-girl, and Thygelion of Chaeronea if he could bring me a Greek courtesan; for, oh, ladies! there were Bombardas in Greece and in Egypt.Apuleius tells us of them. Alas! always the same, and nothing new; nothing more unpublished by the creator in creation!Nil sub sole novum, says Solomon; amor omnibus idem, says Virgil; and Carabine mounts with Carabin into the bark at Saint-Cloud, as Aspasia embarked with pericles upon the fleet at Samos.One last word.Do you know what Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at an epoch when women had, as yet, no soul, she was a soul; a soul of a rosy and purple hue, more ardent hued than fire, fresher than the dawn.Aspasia was a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met; she was the goddess prostitute; Socrates plus Manon Lescaut.Aspasia was created in case a mistress should be needed for prometheus."

     Tholomyes, once started, would have found some difficulty in stopping, had not a horse fallen down upon the quay just at that moment. The shock caused the cart and the orator to come to a dead halt. It was a Beauceron mare, old and thin, and one fit for the knacker, which was dragging a very heavy cart.On arriving in front of Bombarda's, the worn-out, exhausted beast had refused to proceed any further. This incident attracted a crowd.Hardly had the cursing and indignant carter had time to utter with proper energy the sacramental word, Matin (the jade), backed up with a pitiless cut of the whip, when the jade fell, never to rise again.On hearing the hubbub made by the passersby, Tholomyes' merry auditors turned their heads, and Tholomyes took advantage of the opportunity to bring his allocution to a close with this melancholy strophe:--

     "Elle etait de ce monde ou coucous et carrosses(3) Ont le meme destin; Et, rosse, elle a vecu ce que vivant les rosses, L'espace d'un matin!"
     (3) She belonged to that circle where cuckoos and carriages share the same fate; and a jade herself, she lived, as jades live, for the space of a morning (or jade).

     "poor horse!" sighed Fantine.
     And Dahlia exclaimed:--
     "There is Fantine on the point of crying over horses.How can one be such a pitiful fool as that!"
     At that moment Favourite, folding her arms and throwing her head back, looked resolutely at Tholomyes and said:--
     "Come, now! the surprise?"

     "Exactly.The moment has arrived," replied Tholomyes. "Gentlemen, the hour for giving these ladies a surprise has struck. Wait for us a moment, ladies."
     "It begins with a kiss," said Blachevelle.
     "On the brow," added Tholomyes.

     Each gravely bestowed a kiss on his mistress's brow; then all four filed out through the door, with their fingers on their lips.
     Favourite clapped her hands on their departure.
     "It is beginning to be amusing already," said she.
     "Don't be too long," murmured Fantine; "we are waiting for you."

     “爱同饭店比蓬巴达酒家好。”瑟芬叫着说。
    “我喜欢蓬巴达超过爱同，”勃拉什维尔说，“这里显得阔绰些，有些亚洲味道。你们看下面的那间大厅，四面墙上都有镜子。”

    “我只注意盘子里的东西。”宠儿说。勃拉什维尔一再坚持说：“你们瞧这些刀子。在蓬巴达酒家里刀柄是银的，在爱同店里是骨头的。银子当然要比骨头贵重些。”
    “对那些装了银下巴的人来说，这话却不对。”多罗米埃说。这时他从蓬巴达的窗口望着残废军人院的圆屋顶。

    大家寂静下来。
    “多罗米埃，”法梅依叫道，“刚才李士多里和我辩论了一番。”
    “辩论固然好，相骂更奇妙。”多罗米埃回答。
    “我们辩论哲学问题。”
    “哼。”

    “你喜欢笛卡儿还是斯宾诺莎②？”
    “我喜欢德佐吉埃③。”多罗米埃说。下了那判决词之后，他又喝酒，接着说：“活在世上，我同意。世界上并不是一切都完蛋了的，既然我们还可以胡思乱想。因此我感激永生的众神。
②斯宾诺莎（Spinosa），十八世纪荷兰唯物主义哲学家。
③德佐吉埃（Desaugiers），当时歌手。

我们说谎，但我们会发笑，我们一面肯定，但我们一面也怀疑。三段论里常出岔子。有趣。这世上究竟还有一些人能洋洋得意地从那些与众不同的见解中，拿出一些特别玩意儿。诸位女士，你们安安静静喝着的那些东西是从马德拉①来的酒，你们应当知道，是古拉尔?达?弗莱拉斯地方的产品，那里超出海面三百十七个脱阿斯②！喝酒时你们应当注意这三百十七个脱阿斯！而那位漂亮的饭店老板蓬巴达凭着这三百十七个脱阿斯，却只卖你们四法郎五十分丁③！”
①马德拉（Madere），岛名，在大西洋，葡萄牙殖民地。
②脱阿斯（toise），约等于二公尺。
③分丁（centime），法国辅币名，等于百分之一法郎。

    法梅依再次把话打断了：
    “多罗米埃，你的意见等于法律。哪一个作家是你所最欣赏的？”
    “贝尔??。”
    “贝尔坎④！”
    “不对，贝尔舒⑤。”多罗米埃又接下去说：“光荣属于蓬巴达！假使他能为我招来一个埃及舞女，他就能和艾勒芳达的缪诺菲斯媲美；假使他能为我送来一个希腊名妓，他就能与喀洛内的迪瑞琳媲美了！因为，呵，女士们，希腊和埃及，也有过蓬巴达呢。那是阿普列乌斯⑥告诉我们的。可惜世界永远是老一套，绝没有什么新玩意。
④贝尔坎（Berquin，1747—1791），法国文学家。
⑤贝尔舒（Berchoux），十九世纪法国一个食谱作者。
⑥阿普列乌斯（Apulee，约 123—约 180），罗马作家、哲学家，《变形记》和《金驴》的作者。

    在造物主的创作里，再也没有什么未发表的东西，所罗门说过：‘在太阳下面没有新奇的事物。’维吉尔⑦说过：‘每个人的爱全是一样的。’今天的男学生和女学生走上圣克鲁的篷船，正和从前亚斯巴昔和伯利克里①乘舰队去萨摩斯一样。最后一句话。诸位女士，你们知道亚斯巴昔是什么人吗？她虽然生在女子还没有灵魂的时代，她却是一个灵魂，是一个紫红色的比火更灿烂、比朝阳更鲜艳的灵魂。亚斯巴昔是个兼有女性的两个极端性的人儿，她是一个神妓，是苏格拉底②和曼侬?列斯戈③的混合体。亚斯巴昔是为了普罗米修斯④需要一个尤物的缘故而生的。”
⑦维吉尔（Virgile，前 70—19），杰出的罗马诗人。
①伯利克里（Pericles，约前 490—429），雅典政治家，亚斯巴昔是他的妻子。萨摩斯是他征服的一个岛。
②苏格拉底（Socrate，约前 469—399），古希腊唯心主义哲学家，奴隶主贵族思想家。
③曼侬?列斯戈（ManonLescaut），十八世纪法国作家普莱服所作小说《曼侬?列斯戈》中的女主角。
④普罗米修斯（Promethee），希腊神话中窃火给人类的神。

    如果当时没有一匹马倒在了河沿上，高谈阔论的多罗米埃是难于住嘴的。由于那一冲击，那辆车子和这位高谈阔论者都一齐停了下来。一 匹又老又瘦只配送给屠夫的博斯母马，拉着一辆很重的车子。那头气力衰竭的牲口走到蓬巴达的门前，不肯再走了。这件意外的事招来了不少观众。边咒骂、边生气的车夫举起鞭子，对准目标，狠狠一鞭抽下去，同时嘴里骂着“贱畜牲”时，那匹老马却已倒在地上永不再起了。在行人的轰然之动中多罗米埃的那些愉快的听众全掉转头去看了，多罗米埃趁这机会念了这样一节忧伤的诗来结束他的演讲：在这世界上，小车和大车，命运都一样；它是匹劣马，活得象老狗，所以和其他劣马一样。

    “怪可怜的马。”芳汀叹着说。
    于是大丽叫起来了：
    “你们瞧芳汀，她为那些马也叫起屈来了！有这样蠢的人！”这时，宠儿交叉起两条胳膊，仰着头，定睛望着多罗米埃说：“够了够了！还有那古怪玩意儿呢？”
    “正是呵。时候已经到了，”多罗米埃回答说，“诸位先生，送各位女士一件古怪玩意儿的时候已经到了。诸位女士，请等一会儿。”
    “先亲一个嘴。”勃拉什维尔说。
    “亲额。”多罗米埃加上一句。每个人在他情妇的额上郑重地吻了一下，四个男人鱼贯而出，都把一个手指放在嘴上。宠儿鼓着掌，送他们出去。
    “已经很有点意思了。”她说。
    “不要去得太久了，”芳汀低声说，“我们等着你们呢。”
①有这样一首悼念幼女夭亡的古诗：Mais elle etait du monde ou les plus belles chosesOnt le piredestin，Et，roseelle a vecu ce que vivent les roses，L’espace d＇un matin。诗的大意是：在这世界上，最美丽的东西，命运也最坏，她是一朵玫瑰，所以和玫瑰一样，只活了一个早晨。多罗米埃把这首诗改动了几个字，用来悼念那匹死马，主要是以“驽马”（rosse）代“玫瑰”（rose），“恶狗”（matin）代“早晨”（matin），结果这诗的内容就变成现在这个样子。

     When the young girls were left alone, they leaned two by two on the window-sills, chatting, craning out their heads, and talking from one window to the other.

     They saw the young men emerge from the Cafe Bombarda arm in arm. The latter turned round, made signs to them, smiled, and disappeared in that dusty Sunday throng which makes a weekly invasion into the Champs-Elysees.

     "Don't be long!" cried Fantine.
     "What are they going to bring us?" said Zephine.
     "It will certainly be something pretty," said Dahlia.
     "For my part," said Favourite, "I want it to be of gold."

     Their attention was soon distracted by the movements on the shore of the lake, which they could see through the branches of the large trees, and which diverted them greatly.

     It was the hour for the departure of the mail-coaches and diligences. Nearly all the stage-coaches for the south and west passed through the Champs-Elysees. The majority followed the quay and went through the passy Barrier.From moment to moment, some huge vehicle, painted yellow and black, heavily loaded, noisily harnessed, rendered shapeless by trunks, tarpaulins, and valises, full of heads which immediately disappeared, rushed through the crowd with all the sparks of a forge, with dust for smoke, and an air of fury, grinding the pavements, changing all the paving-stones into steels. This uproar delighted the young girls.Favourite exclaimed:--

     "What a row!One would say that it was a pile of chains flying away."
     It chanced that one of these vehicles, which they could only see with difficulty through the thick elms, halted for a moment, then set out again at a gallop.This surprised Fantine.

     "That's odd!" said she."I thought the diligence never stopped."
     Favourite shrugged her shoulders.

     "This Fantine is surprising.I am coming to take a look at her out of curiosity.She is dazzled by the simplest things.Suppose a case: I am a traveller; I say to the diligence, `I will go on in advance; you shall pick me up on the quay as you pass.'The diligence passes, sees me, halts, and takes me.That is done every day.You do not know life, my dear."

     In this manner a certain time elapsed.All at once Favourite made a movement, like a person who is just waking up.
     "Well," said she, "and the surprise?"
     "Yes, by the way," joined in Dahlia, "the famous surprise?"

     "They are a very long time about it!" said Fantine.
     As Fantine concluded this sigh, the waiter who had served them at dinner entered.He held in his hand something which resembled a letter.
     "What is that?" demanded Favourite.

     The waiter replied:--
     "It is a paper that those gentlemen left for these ladies."
     "Why did you not bring it at once?"
     "Because," said the waiter, "the gentlemen ordered me not to deliver it to the ladies for an hour."

     Favourite snatched the paper from the waiter's hand.It was, in fact, a letter.
     "Stop!" said she; "there is no address; but this is what is written on it--"
     "THIS IS THE SURpRISE."
     She tore the letter open hastily, opened it, and read (she knew how to read):--
     "OUR BELOVED:--

     "You must know that we have parents.parents--you do not know much about such things.They are called fathers and mothers by the civil code, which is puerile and honest.Now, these parents groan, these old folks implore us, these good men and these good women call us prodigal sons; they desire our return, and offer to kill calves for us. Being virtuous, we obey them.At the hour when you read this, five fiery horses will be bearing us to our papas and mammas.We are pulling up our stakes, as Bossuet says.We are going; we are gone. We flee in the arms of Lafitte and on the wings of Caillard. The Toulouse diligence tears us from the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our little beauties!We return to society, to duty, to respectability, at full trot, at the rate of three leagues an hour. It is necessary for the good of the country that we should be, like the rest of the world, prefects, fathers of families, rural police, and councillors of state.Venerate us.We are sacrificing ourselves. Mourn for us in haste, and replace us with speed.If this letter lacerates you, do the same by it.Adieu.

     "For the space of nearly two years we have made you happy. We bear you no grudge for that. "Signed: BLACHEVELLE. FAMUEIL. LISTOLIER. FELIX THOLOMYES.
     "postscriptum.The dinner is paid for."
     The four young women looked at each other.
     Favourite was the first to break the silence.
     "Well!" she exclaimed, "it's a very pretty farce, all the same."
     "It is very droll," said Zephine.

     "That must have been Blachevelle's idea," resumed Favourite. "It makes me in love with him.No sooner is he gone than he is loved. This is an adventure, indeed."
     "No," said Dahlia; "it was one of Tholomyes' ideas.That is evident.
     "In that case," retorted Favourite, "death to Blachevelle, and long live Tholomyes!"

     "Long live Tholomyes!" exclaimed Dahlia and Zephine.
     And they burst out laughing.
     Fantine laughed with the rest.
     An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was her first love affair, as we have said; she had given herself to this Tholomyes as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child.

     几位姑娘独自留下，两个两个地伏在窗子边上闲谈，伸着头，隔窗对说。
    她们看见那些年轻人挽着手走出蓬巴达酒家。他们回转头来，笑嘻嘻对着她们挥了挥手，便消失在爱丽舍广场每周都有的那种星期日的尘嚣中去了。

    “不要去得太久了！”芳汀喊着说。
    “他们会带什么玩意儿回来给我们呢？”瑟芬说。
    “那一定是些好看的东西。”大丽说。

    “而我，”宠儿说，“我希望带回来的东西是金的。”她们从那些大树的枝桠间望着水边的活动情景，觉得也很有趣，不久就忘记了那件事了。那正是邮车和公共马车启程的时刻。当时到南部和西部去的客货，几乎全要走过爱丽舍广场，大部分顺着河沿，经过巴喜便门出去。每隔一分钟，就会有一辆刷了黄漆和黑漆的大车，载着沉重的东西，马蹄铁链响成一片，箱、箧、提包堆得乱成一团，车子里人头攒动，一眨眼全都走了，碾踏着街心，疯狂地穿过人堆，路面上的石块尽化成了燧石，尘灰滚滚，就好象是从炼铁炉里冒出的火星和浓烟。几位姑娘见了那种热闹大为兴奋，宠儿喊着说：“多么热闹！就象一堆堆铁链在飞滚。”

    一次，她们仿佛看见有辆车子（由于榆树的枝叶过于浓密，她们看不大清楚）停了一下，随即又飞跑去了。这事惊动了芳停“这真奇怪！”她说。“我还以为公共客车是从来都不停的呢。”宠儿耸了耸肩。

    “这个芳汀真奇怪，我刚才故意看着她。最简单的事她都要大惊小怪。假如我是个旅客，我关照公共客车说：‘我要到前面去一下，您经过河沿时让我上车。’客车来了看见我，停下来，让我上去。这是每天都有的事。你脱离现实生活了，我亲爱的。”这样过了一阵，宠儿忽然一动，仿佛一个如梦初醒的人。

    “喂，”她说，“他们要送我们的古怪玩意儿呢？”
    “是呀，正是这样，”大丽接着说，“那闹了半天的古怪玩意儿呢？”
    “他们耽搁得太久了！”芳汀说。芳汀刚叹完了这口气，伺候晚餐的那个堂倌走进来了，他手里捏着一个东西，好象是封信。
    “这是什么？”宠儿问。堂倌回答说：
    “这是那几位先生留给太太们的一张条子。”
    “为什么没有马上送来？”

    “因为那些先生吩咐过的，”堂倌接着说，“要过了一个钟头才交给这几位太太。”
    宠儿从那堂倌手里把那纸夺过来。那的确是一封信。
    “奇怪，”她说，“没有收信人的姓名，但有这几个字写在上面：这就是古怪玩意儿。

    她急忙把信拆开，打开来念（她识字）：呵，我们的情妇！你们该知道，我们是有双亲的人。双亲，这是你们不大知道的。在幼稚而诚实的民法里，那叫做父亲和母亲。那些亲人，长者，慈祥的老公公，慈祥的老婆婆，他们老叫苦，老想看看我们，叫我们做浪子，盼望我们回去，并且要为我们宰牛杀羊。现在我们服从他们。因为我们是有品德的人。你们念这封信时，五匹怒马已把我们送还给我们的爸爸妈妈了。正如博须埃所说，我们拆台了。我们走了，我们已经走了。我们在拉菲特的怀中，在加亚尔①的翅膀上逃了。去图卢兹的公共客车已把我们从陷阱中拔了出来。陷阱，就是你们，呵，我们美丽的小姑娘！我们回到社会、天职、秩序中去了，马蹄踏踏，每小时要走三法里，祖国需要我们，和旁人一样，去做长官，做家长，做乡吏，做政治顾问。要尊敬我们。我们正在作一种牺牲。快快为我们痛哭一常快快为我们找替身吧。假使这封信撕碎了你们的心，你们就照样向它报复，把它撕碎。永别了。
①菲特（Lafitte）和加亚尔（Caillard）均为当时负责客车事务的官员。

    近两年来我们曾使你们幸福，千万不可埋怨我们。勃拉什维尔法梅依李士多里多罗米埃（签字）附告：餐费已付。
    四位姑娘面面相觑。宠儿第一个打破沉寂。
    “好呀，”她喊着说，“这玩笑确是开得不坏。”
    “很有趣。”瑟芬说。

    “这一定是勃拉什维尔出的主意，”宠儿又说，“这倒使我爱他了。人不在，心头爱，人总是这样的。”
    “不对，”大丽说，“这是多罗米埃的主意。一望便知。”“既是这样，”宠儿又说，“勃拉什维尔该死，多罗米埃万岁！”“多罗米埃万岁！”大丽和瑟芬都喊起来。

    接着，她们放声大笑。
    芳汀也随着大家笑。一个钟头过后，她回到了自己的屋子里，她哭了出来。我们已经说过，这是她第一次的爱。她早已如同委身于自己的丈夫一样委身于多罗米埃了，并且这可怜的姑娘已生有一个孩子。

    There was, at Montfermeil, near paris, during the first quarter of this century, a sort of cook-shop which no longer exists. This cook-shop was kept by some people named Thenardier, husband and wife.It was situated in Boulanger Lane.Over the door there was a board nailed flat against the wall.Upon this board was painted something which resembled a man carrying another man on his back, the latter wearing the big gilt epaulettes of a general, with large silver stars; red spots represented blood; the rest of the picture consisted of smoke, and probably represented a battle. Below ran this inscription:AT THE SIGN OF SERGEANT OF WATERLOO (Au Sargent de Waterloo).

    Nothing is more common than a cart or a truck at the door of a hostelry.Nevertheless, the vehicle, or, to speak more accurately, the fragment of a vehicle, which encumbered the street in front of the cook-shop of the Sergeant of Waterloo, one evening in the spring of 1818, would certainly have attracted, by its mass, the attention of any painter who had passed that way.

    It was the fore-carriage of one of those trucks which are used in wooded tracts of country, and which serve to transport thick planks and the trunks of trees.This fore-carriage was composed of a massive iron axle-tree with a pivot, into which was fitted a heavy shaft, and which was supported by two huge wheels. The whole thing was compact, overwhelming, and misshapen. It seemed like the gun-carriage of an enormous cannon.The ruts of the road had bestowed on the wheels, the fellies, the hub, the axle, and the shaft, a layer of mud, a hideous yellowish daubing hue, tolerably like that with which people are fond of ornamenting cathedrals. The wood was disappearing under mud, and the iron beneath rust. Under the axle-tree hung, like drapery, a huge chain, worthy of some Goliath of a convict.This chain suggested, not the beams, which it was its office to transport, but the mastodons and mammoths which it might have served to harness; it had the air of the galleys, but of cyclopean and superhuman galleys, and it seemed to have been detached from some monster.Homer would have bound polyphemus with it, and Shakespeare, Caliban.

    Why was that fore-carriage of a truck in that place in the street? In the first place, to encumber the street; next, in order that it might finish the process of rusting.There is a throng of institutions in the old social order, which one comes across in this fashion as one walks about outdoors, and which have no other reasons for existence than the above.

    The centre of the chain swung very near the ground in the middle, and in the loop, as in the rope of a swing, there were seated and grouped, on that particular evening, in exquisite interlacement, two little girls; one about two years and a half old, the other, eighteen months; the younger in the arms of the other.A handkerchief, cleverly knotted about them, prevented their falling out. A mother had caught sight of that frightful chain, and had said, "Come! there's a plaything for my children."

    The two children, who were dressed prettily and with some elegance, were radiant with pleasure; one would have said that they were two roses amid old iron; their eyes were a triumph; their fresh cheeks were full of laughter.One had chestnut hair; the other, brown. Their innocent faces were two delighted surprises; a blossoming shrub which grew near wafted to the passers-by perfumes which seemed to emanate from them; the child of eighteen months displayed her pretty little bare stomach with the chaste indecency of childhood. Above and around these two delicate heads, all made of happiness and steeped in light, the gigantic fore-carriage, black with rust, almost terrible, all entangled in curves and wild angles, rose in a vault, like the entrance of a cavern.A few paces apart, crouching down upon the threshold of the hostelry, the mother, not a very prepossessing woman, by the way, though touching at that moment, was swinging the two children by means of a long cord, watching them carefully, for fear of accidents, with that animal and celestial expression which is peculiar to maternity.At every backward and forward swing the hideous links emitted a strident sound, which resembled a cry of rage; the little girls were in ecstasies; the setting sun mingled in this joy, and nothing could be more charming than this caprice of chance which had made of a chain of Titans the swing of cherubim.

    As she rocked her little ones, the mother hummed in a discordant voice a romance then celebrated:--
    "It must be, said a warrior."
    Her song, and the contemplation of her daughters, prevented her hearing and seeing what was going on in the street.

    In the meantime, some one had approached her, as she was beginning the first couplet of the romance, and suddenly she heard a voice saying very near her ear:--
    "You have two beautiful children there, Madame."
    "To the fair and tender Imogene--"

    Replied the mother, continuing her romance; then she turned her head.
    A woman stood before her, a few paces distant.This woman also had a child, which she carried in her arms.
    She was carrying, in addition, a large carpet-bag, which seemed very heavy.

    This woman's child was one of the most divine creatures that it is possible to behold.lt was a girl, two or three years of age. She could have entered into competition with the two other little ones, so far as the coquetry of her dress was concerned; she wore a cap of fine linen, ribbons on her bodice, and Valenciennes lace on her cap. The folds of her skirt were raised so as to permit a view of her white, firm, and dimpled leg.She was admirably rosy and healthy. The little beauty inspired a desire to take a bite from the apples of her cheeks.Of her eyes nothing could be known, except that they must be very large, and that they had magnificent lashes. She was asleep.

    She slept with that slumber of absolute confidence peculiar to her age.The arms of mothers are made of tenderness; in them children sleep profoundly.

    As for the mother, her appearance was sad and poverty-stricken. She was dressed like a working-woman who is inclined to turn into a peasant again.She was young.Was she handsome?perhaps; but in that attire it was not apparent.Her hair, a golden lock of which had escaped, seemed very thick, but was severely concealed beneath an ugly, tight, close, nun-like cap, tied under the chin.A smile displays beautiful teeth when one has them; but she did not smile. Her eyes did not seem to have been dry for a very long time. She was pale; she had a very weary and rather sickly appearance. She gazed upon her daughter asleep in her arms with the air peculiar to a mother who has nursed her own child.A large blue handkerchief, such as the Invalides use, was folded into a fichu, and concealed her figure clumsily.Her hands were sunburnt and all dotted with freckles, her forefinger was hardened and lacerated with the needle; she wore a cloak of coarse brown woollen stuff, a linen gown, and coarse shoes. It was Fantine.

    It was Fantine, but difficult to recognize.Nevertheless, on scrutinizing her attentively, it was evident that she still retained her beauty. A melancholy fold, which resembled the beginning of irony, wrinkled her right cheek.As for her toilette, that aerial toilette of muslin and ribbons, which seemed made of mirth, of folly, and of music, full of bells, and perfumed with lilacs had vanished like that beautiful and dazzling hoar-frost which is mistaken for diamonds in the sunlight; it melts and leaves the branch quite black.

    Ten months had elapsed since the "pretty farce."
    What had taken place during those ten months?It can be divined.

    After abandonment, straightened circumstances.Fantine had immediately lost sight of Favourite, Zephine and Dahlia; the bond once broken on the side of the men, it was loosed between the women; they would have been greatly astonished had any one told them a fortnight later, that they had been friends; there no longer existed any reason for such a thing.Fantine had remained alone. The father of her child gone,--alas! such ruptures are irrevocable,-- she found herself absolutely isolated, minus the habit of work and plus the taste for pleasure.Drawn away by her liaison with Tholomyes to disdain the pretty trade which she knew, she had neglected to keep her market open; it was now closed to her.She had no resource. Fantine barely knew how to read, and did not know how to write; in her childhood she had only been taught to sign her name; she had a public letter-writer indite an epistle to Tholomyes, then a second, then a third.Tholomyes replied to none of them. Fantine heard the gossips say, as they looked at her child: "Who takes those children seriously!One only shrugs one's shoulders over such children!"Then she thought of Tholomyes, who had shrugged his shoulders over his child, and who did not take that innocent being seriously; and her heart grew gloomy toward that man. But what was she to do?She no longer knew to whom to apply. She had committed a fault, but the foundation of her nature, as will be remembered, was modesty and virtue.She was vaguely conscious that she was on the verge of falling into distress, and of gliding into a worse state.Courage was necessary; she possessed it, and held herself firm.The idea of returning to her native town of M. sur M. occurred to her.There, some one might possibly know her and give her work; yes, but it would be necessary to conceal her fault.In a confused way she perceived the necessity of a separation which would be more painful than the first one. Her heart contracted, but she took her resolution.Fantine, as we shall see, had the fierce bravery of life.She had already valiantly renounced finery, had dressed herself in linen, and had put all her silks, all her ornaments, all her ribbons, and all her laces on her daughter, the only vanity which was left to her, and a holy one it was.She sold all that she had, which produced for her two hundred francs; her little debts paid, she had only about eighty francs left.At the age of twenty-two, on a beautiful spring morning, she quitted paris, bearing her child on her back. Any one who had seen these two pass would have had pity on them. This woman had, in all the world, nothing but her child, and the child had, in all the world, no one but this woman.Fantine had nursed her child, and this had tired her chest, and she coughed a little.

    We shall have no further occasion to speak of M. Felix Tholomyes. Let us confine ourselves to saying, that, twenty years later, under King Louis philippe, he was a great provincial lawyer, wealthy and influential, a wise elector, and a very severe juryman; he was still a man of pleasure.

    Towards the middle of the day, after having, from time to time, for the sake of resting herself, travelled, for three or four sous a league, in what was then known as the petites Voitures des Environs de paris, the "little suburban coach service," Fantine found herself at Montfermeil, in the alley Boulanger.

    As she passed the Thenardier hostelry, the two little girls, blissful in the monster swing, had dazzled her in a manner, and she had halted in front of that vision of joy.
    Charms exist.These two little girls were a charm to this mother.

    She gazed at them in much emotion.The presence of angels is an announcement of paradise.She thought that, above this inn, she beheld the mysterious HERE of providence.These two little creatures were evidently happy.She gazed at them, she admired them, in such emotion that at the moment when their mother was recovering her breath between two couplets of her song, she could not refrain from addressing to her the remark which we have just read:--

    "You have two pretty children, Madame."
    The most ferocious creatures are disarmed by caresses bestowed on their young.

    The mother raised her head and thanked her, and bade the wayfarer sit down on the bench at the door, she herself being seated on the threshold.The two women began to chat.

    "My name is Madame Thenardier," said the mother of the two little girls. "We keep this inn."
    Then, her mind still running on her romance, she resumed humming between her teeth:--
    "It must be so; I am a knight, And I am off to palestine."

    This Madame Thenardier was a sandy-complexioned woman, thin and angular-- the type of the soldier's wife in all its unpleasantness; and what was odd, with a languishing air, which she owed to her perusal of romances.She was a simpering, but masculine creature. Old romances produce that effect when rubbed against the imagination of cook-shop woman.She was still young; she was barely thirty. If this crouching woman had stood upright, her lofty stature and her frame of a perambulating colossus suitable for fairs, might have frightened the traveller at the outset, troubled her confidence, and disturbed what caused what we have to relate to vanish. A person who is seated instead of standing erect--destinies hang upon such a thing as that.

    The traveller told her story, with slight modifications.
    That she was a working-woman; that her husband was dead; that her work in paris had failed her, and that she was on her way to seek it elsewhere, in her own native parts; that she had left paris that morning on foot; that, as she was carrying her child, and felt fatigued, she had got into the Villemomble coach when she met it; that from Villemomble she had come to Montfermeil on foot; that the little one had walked a little, but not much, because she was so young, and that she had been obliged to take her up, and the jewel had fallen asleep.

    At this word she bestowed on her daughter a passionate kiss, which woke her.The child opened her eyes, great blue eyes like her mother's, and looked at--what?Nothing; with that serious and sometimes severe air of little children, which is a mystery of their luminous innocence in the presence of our twilight of virtue.One would say that they feel themselves to be angels, and that they know us to be men.Then the child began to laugh; and although the mother held fast to her, she slipped to the ground with the unconquerable energy of a little being which wished to run.
    All at once she caught sight of the two others in the swing, stopped short, and put out her tongue, in sign of admiration.
    Mother Thenardier released her daughters, made them descend from the swing, and said:--
    "Now amuse yourselves, all three of you."

    Children become acquainted quickly at that age, and at the expiration of a minute the little Thenardiers were playing with the new-comer at making holes in the ground, which was an immense pleasure.

    The new-comer was very gay; the goodness of the mother is written in the gayety of the child; she had seized a scrap of wood which served her for a shovel, and energetically dug a cavity big enough for a fly.The grave-digger's business becomes a subject for laughter when performed by a child.
    The two women pursued their chat.

    "What is your little one's name?"
    "Cosette."

    For Cosette, read Euphrasie.The child's name was Euphrasie. But out of Euphrasie the mother had made Cosette by that sweet and graceful instinct of mothers and of the populace which changes Josepha into pepita, and Francoise into Sillette.It is a sort of derivative which disarranges and disconcerts the whole science of etymologists.We have known a grandmother who succeeded in turning Theodore into Gnon.

    "How old is she?"
    "She is going on three."
    "That is the age of my eldest."

    In the meantime, the three little girls were grouped in an attitude of profound anxiety and blissfulness; an event had happened; a big worm had emerged from the ground, and they were afraid; and they were in ecstasies over it.
    Their radiant brows touched each other; one would have said that there were three heads in one aureole.

    "How easily children get acquainted at once!" exclaimed Mother Thenardier; "one would swear that they were three sisters!"
    This remark was probably the spark which the other mother had been waiting for.She seized the Thenardier's hand, looked at her fixedly, and said:--

    "Will you keep my child for me?"
    The Thenardier made one of those movements of surprise which signify neither assent nor refusal.
    Cosette's mother continued:--

    "You see, I cannot take my daughter to the country.My work will not permit it.With a child one can find no situation. people are ridiculous in the country.It was the good God who caused me to pass your inn.When I caught sight of your little ones, so pretty, so clean, and so happy, it overwhelmed me.I said: `Here is a good mother.That is just the thing; that will make three sisters.'And then, it will not be long before I return. Will you keep my child for me?"

    "I must see about it," replied the Thenardier.
    "I will give you six francs a month."
    Here a man's voice called from the depths of the cook-shop:--

    "Not for less than seven francs.And six months paid in advance."
    "Six times seven makes forty-two," said the Thenardier.
    "I will give it," said the mother.
    "And fifteen francs in addition for preliminary expenses," added the man's voice.

    "Total, fifty-seven francs," said Madame Thenardier.And she hummed vaguely, with these figures:--
    "It must be, said a warrior."
    "I will pay it," said the mother."I have eighty francs.I shall have enough left to reach the country, by travelling on foot. I shall earn money there, and as soon as I have a little I will return for my darling."

    The man's voice resumed:--
    "The little one has an outfit?"
    "That is my husband," said the Thenardier.

    "Of course she has an outfit, the poor treasure.--I understood perfectly that it was your husband.--And a beautiful outfit, too! a senseless outfit, everything by the dozen, and silk gowns like a lady.It is here, in my carpet-bag."
    "You must hand it over," struck in the man's voice again.
    "Of course I shall give it to you," said the mother."It would be very queer if I were to leave my daughter quite naked!"

    The master's face appeared.
    "That's good," said he.
    The bargain was concluded.The mother passed the night at the inn, gave up her money and left her child, fastened her carpet-bag once more, now reduced in volume by the removal of the outfit, and light henceforth and set out on the following morning, intending to return soon.people arrange such departures tranquilly; but they are despairs!

    A neighbor of the Thenardiers met this mother as she was setting out, and came back with the remark:--
    "I have just seen a woman crying in the street so that it was enough to rend your heart."
    When Cosette's mother had taken her departure, the man said to the woman:--

    "That will serve to pay my note for one hundred and ten francs which falls due to-morrow; I lacked fifty francs.Do you know that I should have had a bailiff and a protest after me? You played the mouse-trap nicely with your young ones."
    "Without suspecting it," said the woman.

     本世纪最初的二十五年中，在巴黎附近的孟费郿地方有一家大致象饭店那样的客店，现在已经不在了。这客店是名叫德纳第的夫妇俩开的。开在面包师巷。店门头上有块木板，平钉在墙上。板上画了些东西，好象是个人，那人背上背着另一个带有将军级的金色大肩章，章上还有几颗大银星的人；画上还有一些红斑纹，表示鲜血；其余部分全是烟尘，大概是要描绘战场上的情景。木板的下端有这样几个字：滑铁卢中士客寓。

    在一个客店门前停辆榻车或小车原是件最平常的事。但在一八一八 年春季的一天傍晚，在那滑铁卢中士客寓门前停着的那辆阻塞街道的大车（不如说一辆车子的残骸），却足以吸引过路画家的注意。

    那是一辆在森林地区用来装运厚木板和树干的重型货车的前半部分，它是用一条装在两个巨型轮上的粗笨铁轴和一条嵌在轴上的粗笨辕木构成的。整体庞大、笨重、奇形怪状，就象一架大炮的座子。车轮、轮边、轮心、轮轴和辕木上面都被沿途的泥坑涂上了一层黄泥污浆，颇象一般人喜欢用来修饰天主堂的那种灰浆。木质隐在泥浆里，铁质隐在铁锈里，车轴下面，横挂着一条适合于苦役犯歌利亚①的粗链。那条链子不会叫人想到它所捆载的巨材，却叫人想到它所能驾驭的乳齿象和猛犸；它那模样，好象是从监狱（巨魔和超人的监狱）里出来的，也好象是从一个妖怪身上解下来的。荷马一定会用它来缚住波吕菲摩斯，莎士比亚会用来缚住凯列班。
①歌利亚（Goliatn），《圣经》中所载为大卫王所杀之非利士巨人。

    为什么那辆重型货车的前部会停在那街心呢？首先，为了阻塞道路；其次，为了让它锈完。在旧社会的组织当中，就有许许多多这类机构，也同样明目张胆地堵在路上，并没有别的存在的理由。

    那亸下的链条，中段离地颇近，黄昏时分有两个小女孩，一个大约两岁半，一个十八个月，并排坐在那链条的弯处，如同坐在秋千索上，小的那个就躺在大的怀中，亲亲热热地相互拥抱着。一条手帕巧妙地系住她们，以免她们摔下。有个母亲最初看见那条丑链条时，她说：“嘿！这家伙可以做我孩子们的玩具。”

    两个欢欢喜喜的孩子，确也打扮得惹人喜爱，是有人细心照顾着的，就象废铁中的两朵蔷薇；她们的眼睛，神气十足，鲜润的脸蛋儿笑嘻嘻的。一个的头发是栗色，另一个是棕色。她们天真的面庞露出又惊又喜的神气。附近有一丛野花对着行人频送香味，人家总以为那香味是从她们那里来的。十八个月的那个，天真烂漫，露出她那赤裸裸、挺可爱的小肚皮。在这两个幸福无边、娇艳夺目的小宝贝的顶上，耸立着那个高阔的车架，黑锈满身，形相丑陋，纵横交错、张牙舞爪的曲线和棱角遍布，好比野人洞口的门拱。几步之外，有一个面目并不可爱但此刻却很令人感动的大娘，那就是她们的母亲；她正蹲在那客店门口，用一根长绳拉荡着那两个孩子，眼睛紧紧盯着她们，生怕发生意外。她那神气，既象猛兽又象天神，除了母亲，别人不会象那样。那些怪难看的链环，每荡一次，都象发脾气似的发出一种锐利的叫声。那两个小女孩直乐得出神，斜阳也正从旁助兴。天意的诡谲使一条巨魔的铁链成了小天使们的秋千，世间再也没有比这更有趣的事了。母亲一面荡摇着她的两个孩子，一面用一种不准确的音调哼着一首当时流行的情歌：必须如此，一个战士??她的歌声和她对那两个女儿的关注，使她既听不见、也看不见街上发生的事。

    正当她开始唱那首情歌的第一节，就已有人走近了她的身边，她忽然听见有人在她耳边说：“大嫂，您的两个小宝宝真可爱。”
    ——对美丽温柔的伊默瑟说，
    那母亲唱着情歌来表示回答，随后转过头来。原来是个妇人站在她面前，离开她只有几步远。那妇人也有个孩子抱在怀里。

    此外，她还挽着一个似乎很重的随身大衣包。那妇人的孩子是个小仙女似的孩子。一个两三岁的女孩。她衣服装饰的艳丽很能和那两个孩子比一比。她戴一顶细绸小帽，帽上有瓦朗斯①花边，披一件有飘带的斗篷。掀起裙子就看见她那雪白、肥嫩、坚实的大腿。她面色红润，身体健康，着实可爱。两颊鲜艳得象苹果，教人见了恨不能咬它一口。她的眼睛一定是很大的，一定还有非常秀丽的睫毛，我们不能再说什么，因为她正睡着了。
①瓦朗斯（Valence），法国城市，以产花边著名。

    她睡得多香甜呀！只有在她那种小小年纪才能那样全然无忧无虑地睡着。慈母的胳膊是慈爱构成的，孩子们睡在里面怎能不甜？而那母亲却是副贫苦忧郁的模样，她的装束象个女工，却又露出一些想要重做农妇的迹象，她还年轻。她美吗？也许，但由于那种装束，她并不显得美。她头发里的一绺金发露了出来，显出她头发的浓厚，但是她用一条丑而窄的巫婆用的头巾紧紧结在颏下，把头发全遮住了。人会在笑时露出美丽的牙齿，但是她一点也不笑。她的眼睛仿佛刚哭过才干。她脸上没有血色，显得非常疲乏，象是有病一般。她瞧着睡在她怀里的女儿的那种神情，只有亲自哺乳的母亲才会有。一条对角折的粗蓝布大手巾，就是伤兵们用来擤鼻涕的那种大手巾，遮去了她的腰。她的手，干枯而黝黑，生满了斑点，食指上的粗皮满是针痕，肩上披一件蓝色的粗羊毛氅，布裙袍，大鞋。她就是芳停她就是芳停已经很难认出来了。但是仔细看去，她的美不减当年。一条含愁的皱痕横在她的右脸上，仿佛是冷笑的开端。至于装束，她从前那种镶缀丝带、散发丁香味儿、狂态十足的轻罗华服，好象是由愉快、狂欢和音乐构成的装饰，早已象日光下同金刚钻一样耀眼的树上霜花那样消失殆尽了，霜花融化之后，留下的只是深黑的树枝。那次的“妙玩笑”开过以后，已经过了十个月了。在这十个月中发生了什么事呢？那是可以想见的。遗弃之后，便是艰辛。芳汀完全见不着宠儿、瑟芬和大丽了；从男子方面断绝了的关系，在女子方面也被拆散了；如果有人在十五天过后说她们从前曾是朋友，她们一定会感到奇怪，现在已没有再做朋友的理由了。芳汀只是孤零零的一个人。她孩子的父亲走了，真惨！这种绝交是无可挽回的，她孑然一身，无亲无故，加上劳动的习惯减少了，娱乐的嗜好增多了，自从和多罗米埃发生关系以后，她便轻视她从前学得的那些小手艺，她忽视了自己的出路，现在已是无路可走了。毫无救星。芳汀稍稍认识几个字，但不知道写，在她年幼时，人家只教过她签自己的名字。她曾请一个摆写字摊的先生写了一封信给多罗米埃，随后又写了第二封，随后又写了第三封。多罗米埃一封也没有回复。一天，芳汀听见一些尖嘴利舌的女人望着她的孩子说：“谁会认这种孩子？对这种孩子，大家耸耸肩就完了！”于是她想到多罗米埃一定也对她的孩子耸肩，不会认这无辜的小人儿的，想到那男人，她的心冷了。但是作什么打算呢？她已不知道该向谁求教。她犯了错误，但是我们记得，她的本质是贞洁贤淑的。她隐隐地感到，她不久就会堕入苦难，沉溺到更加不如的境地里。她非得有毅力不行；她有毅力，于是她站稳脚跟。她忽然想到要回到她家乡滨海蒙特勒伊去，在那里也许会有人认识她，会给她工作。这打算不错，不过得先隐瞒她的错误。于是她隐隐看出，可能又要面临生离的苦痛了，而这次的生离的苦痛是会比上一次更重的。她的心绞成一团，但是她下定了决心。芳汀，我们将来可以知道，是敢于大胆正视人生的。

    她已毅然决然放弃了修饰，自己穿着布衣，把她所有的丝织品、碎料子、飘带、花边，都用在她女儿身上，这女儿是她仅有的希冀。她变卖了所有的东西，得到二百法郎，还清各处的零星债务后她只有八十来个法郎了。在芳龄二十二岁的一个晴朗的春天的早晨，她背着她的孩子，离开了巴黎。如果有人看见她们母女俩走过，谁都会心酸。那妇人在世上只有这个孩子，那孩子在世上也仅有这个妇人。芳汀喂过她女儿的奶，她的胸脯亏损了，因而有点咳嗽。

    我们以后不会再有机会谈到斐利克斯?多罗米埃先生了。我们只说，二十年后，在路易—菲力浦王朝时代①，他是外省一个满脸横肉、有钱有势的公家律师，一个乖巧的选民，一个很严厉的审判官，一个一贯寻芳猎艳的好色之徒。
①即一八三 0年至一八四八年。

    芳汀坐上当时称为巴黎郊区小车的那种车子，花上每法里三四个苏的车费，白天就到了孟费郿的面包师巷。
    她从德纳第客店门前走过，看见那两个小女孩在那怪形秋千架上玩得很起劲，不禁心中变得快乐起来，直望着那幅欢乐的景象出神。
    诱惑人的魑魅是有的。那两个女孩对这个做母亲的来说，便是这种魑魅。

    她望着她们，大为感动。看见天使便如身历天堂，她仿佛看见在那客店上面有“上帝在此”的神秘字样。那两个女孩明明是那样快活！她望着她们，羡慕她们，异常感动，以至当那母亲在她两句歌词间换气时，她不能不对她说出我们刚才读到的那句话：“大嫂，您的两个小宝宝真可爱。”

    再凶猛的禽兽，见人家抚摸它的幼雏也会变得驯服起来的。母亲抬起头，道了谢，又请这位过路的女客坐在门边条凳上，她自己仍蹲在门槛上。两个妇人便攀谈起来了。

    “我叫德纳第妈妈，”两个女孩的母亲说，“这客店是我们开的。”随后，又回到她的情歌，合着牙哼起来：必须这样，我是骑士，我正要到巴勒斯坦去。

    这位德纳第妈妈是个赤发、多肉、呼吸滞塞的妇人，是个典型的装妖作怪的母大虫。并且说也奇怪，她老象有满腔心事一样，那是由于她多读了几回艳情小说。她是那么一个扭扭捏捏、男不男女不女的家伙，那些已经破烂的旧小说，对一个客店老板娘的想象力来说，往往便会产生这样的影响。她还年轻，不到三十岁。假使这个蹲着的妇人当时直立起来，她那奇伟魁梧、游艺场中活菩萨般的身材也许会立刻吓退那位女客，扰乱她的信心，而我们要叙述的事也就不会发生了。一个人的一起一坐竟会牵涉到许多人的命运。

    远来的女客开始谈她的身世，不过谈得稍微与实际情况有些出入。

    她说她是一个女工，丈夫死了，巴黎缺少工作，她要到别处去找工作，她要回到她的家乡去。当天早晨，她徒步离开了巴黎，因为她带着孩子，觉得疲倦了，恰巧遇见到蒙白耳城去的车子，她便坐了上去；从蒙白耳城到孟费郿，她是走来的；小的也走了一点路，但是不多，她太幼小，只得抱着她，她的宝贝睡着了。说到此地，她热烈地吻了一下她的女儿，把她弄醒了。那个孩子睁开她的眼睛，大大的蓝眼睛，和她母亲的一模一样，望着，望什么呢？什么也不望，什么也在望，用孩子们那副一本正经并且有时严肃的神气望着，那种神气正是他们光明的天真面对我们日益衰败的道德的一种神秘的表示。仿佛他们觉得自己是天使，又知道我们是凡人。随后那个孩子笑起来了，虽然母亲抱住她，但她用小生命跃跃欲试的那种难以约束的毅力滑到地上去了，忽然她看见了秋千上面的那两个孩子，立刻停住不动，伸出舌头，表示羡慕。

    德纳第妈妈把她两个女儿解下了，叫她们从秋千上下来，说道：“你们三个人一块儿玩吧。”在那种年纪，大家很快就玩熟了，一分钟过后，那两个小德纳第姑娘便和这个新来的伴侣一起在地上掘洞了，其乐无穷。这个新来的伴侣是很活泼有趣的，母亲的好心肠已在这个娃娃的快乐里表露出来了，她拿了一小块木片做铲子，用力掘了一个能容一只苍蝇的洞。掘墓穴工人的工作出自一个孩子的手，便有趣了。

    两人妇人继续谈话。
    “您的宝宝叫什么？”
    “珂赛特。”

    珂赛特应当是欧福拉吉。那孩子本来叫欧福拉吉。但她母亲把欧福拉吉改成了珂赛特，这是母亲和平民常有的一种娴雅的本能，比方说，约瑟华往往变成贝比达，佛朗索瓦斯往往变成西莱菜。这种字的转借法，绝不是字源学家的学问所能解释的。我们认得一个人的祖母，她居然把泰奥多尔变成了格农。“她几岁了？”

    “快三岁了。”
    “正和我的大孩子一样。”此时，那三个女孩聚在一堆，神气显得极其快乐，但又显得非常焦急，因为正有件大事发生了：一条肥大的蚯蚓刚从地里钻出来，她们正看得出神。
    她们喜气洋洋的额头一个挨着一个，仿佛三个头同在一圈环形光里一样。
    “这些孩子们，”德纳第妈妈大声说，“一下子就混熟了！别人一 定认为她们是三个亲姊妹呢！”

    那句话恐怕正是这个母亲所等待的火星吧。她握住德纳第妈妈的手，眼睛盯着她，向她说：“您肯替我照顾我的孩子吗？”德纳第妈妈一惊，那是一种既不表示同意，也不表示拒绝的动作。珂赛特的母亲紧接着说：“您明白吗，我不能把我的孩子领到家乡去。工作不允许那样做。

    带着孩子不会有安身的地方。在那地方，他们本来就是那样古怪的。慈悲的上帝教我从您客店门前走过，当我看见您的孩子那样好看、那样干净、那样高兴时，我的心早被打动了。我说过：‘这才真是个好母亲呵。’哟，她们真会成三个亲姊妹。并且，我不久就要回来的。您肯替我照顾我的孩子吗？”

    “我得先想想。”德纳第妈妈说。
    “我可以每月付六个法郎。”说到这里，一个男子的声音从那客店的深处叫道：“非得七个法郎不成。并且要先付六个月。”
    “六七四十二。”德纳第妈妈说。“我照付就是。”那母亲说。
    “并且另外要十五法郎，做刚接过手时的一切费用。”男子的声音又说。
    “总共五十七法郎。”德纳第妈妈说。

    提到这些数目时，她又很随便地哼起来：必须这样，一个战士说。
    “我照付就是，”那母亲说，“我有八十法郎。剩下的钱，尽够我盘缠，如果走去的话。到了那里，我就赚得到钱，等我有点钱的时候，我就回头来找我的心肝。”

    男子的声音又说：
    “那孩子有包袱吗？”
    “那是我的丈夫。”德纳第妈妈说。

    “当然她有一个包袱，这个可怜的宝贝。我早知道他是您的丈夫。并且还是一个装得满满的包袱！不过有点满得不合人情。里面的东西全是成打的，还有一些和贵妇人衣料一样的绸缎衣服。它就在我的随身衣包里。”

    “您得把它交出来。”男子的声音又说。
    “我当然要把它交出来！”母亲说，“我让我的女儿衣不蔽体，那才笑话呢！”
    德纳第摆出了主人的面孔。

    “很好。”他说。这桩买卖成交了。母亲在那客店里住了一夜，交出了她的钱，留下了她的孩子，重新系上她那只由于取出了孩子衣服而缩小，从此永远轻便的随身衣包，在第二天早晨走了，一心打算早早回来。人们对骨肉的离合总爱打如意算盘，但往往只落得一场空。德纳第夫妇的一个女邻居碰到了这位离去的母亲，她回来说：“我刚才看见一个妇人在街上哭得好惨！”

    珂赛特的母亲走了以后，那汉子便对他婆娘说：“这样我就可以付我那张明天到期的一百一十法郎的期票了。先头我缺五十法郎。你可知道？法院的执达吏快要把人家告发我的拒绝付款状给我送来了。这一下，你靠了你的两个孩子做了回财神娘娘。”

    “我没有想到。”那婆娘说。

     The mouse which had been caught was a pitiful specimen; but the cat rejoices even over a lean mouse.
     Who were these Thenardiers?
     Let us say a word or two of them now.We will complete the sketch later on.

     These beings belonged to that bastard class composed of coarse people who have been successful, and of intelligent people who have descended in the scale, which is between the class called "middle" and the class denominated as "inferior," and which combines some of the defects of the second with nearly all the vices of the first, without possessing the generous impulse of the workingman nor the honest order of the bourgeois.

     They were of those dwarfed natures which, if a dull fire chances to warm them up, easily become monstrous.There was in the woman a substratum of the brute, and in the man the material for a blackguard. Both were susceptible, in the highest degree, of the sort of hideous progress which is accomplished in the direction of evil.There exist crab-like souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness, retrograding in life rather than advancing, employing experience to augment their deformity, growing incessantly worse, and becoming more and more impregnated with an ever-augmenting blackness. This man and woman possessed such souls.

     Thenardier, in particular, was troublesome for a physiognomist. One can only look at some men to distrust them; for one feels that they are dark in both directions.They are uneasy in the rear and threatening in front.There is something of the unknown about them. One can no more answer for what they have done than for what they will do.The shadow which they bear in their glance denounces them. From merely hearing them utter a word or seeing them make a gesture, one obtains a glimpse of sombre secrets in their past and of sombre mysteries in their future.

     This Thenardier, if he himself was to be believed, had been a soldier-- a sergeant, he said.He had probably been through the campaign of 1815, and had even conducted himself with tolerable valor, it would seem. We shall see later on how much truth there was in this.The sign of his hostelry was in allusion to one of his feats of arms. He had painted it himself; for he knew how to do a little of everything, and badly.

     It was at the epoch when the ancient classical romance which, after having been Clelie, was no longer anything but Lodoiska, still noble, but ever more and more vulgar, having fallen from Mademoiselle de Scuderi to Madame Bournon-Malarme, and from Madame de Lafayette to Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, was setting the loving hearts of the portresses of paris aflame, and even ravaging the suburbs to some extent. Madame Thenardier was just intelligent enough to read this sort of books. She lived on them.In them she drowned what brains she possessed. This had given her, when very young, and even a little later, a sort of pensive attitude towards her husband, a scamp of a certain depth, a ruffian lettered to the extent of the grammar, coarse and fine at one and the same time, but, so far as sentimentalism was concerned, given to the perusal of pigault-Lebrun, and "in what concerns the sex," as he said in his jargon--a downright, unmitigated lout.His wife was twelve or fifteen years younger than he was.Later on, when her hair, arranged in a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Magaera began to be developed from the pamela, the female Thenardier was nothing but a coarse, vicious woman, who had dabbled in stupid romances.Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity. The result was that her eldest daughter was named Eponine; as for the younger, the poor little thing came near being called Gulnare; I know not to what diversion, effected by a romance of Ducray-Dumenil, she owed the fact that she merely bore the name of Azelma.

     However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which may be designated as the anarchy of baptismal names. By the side of this romantic element which we have just indicated there is the social symptom.It is not rare for the neatherd's boy nowadays to bear the name of Arthur, Alfred, or Alphonse, and for the vicomte--if there are still any vicomtes--to be called Thomas, pierre, or Jacques.This displacement, which places the "elegant" name on the plebeian and the rustic name on the aristocrat, is nothing else than an eddy of equality.The irresistible penetration of the new inspiration is there as everywhere else. Beneath this apparent discord there is a great and a profound thing,-- the French Revolution.

     那只被逮住的老鼠是瘦的，但是猫即使得了一只瘦老鼠，同样也要快乐一常德纳第夫妇是什么东西呢？我们现在简单地谈谈。将来再补充描绘他们的轮廓。这些人属于那种爬上去了的粗鄙人和失败了的聪明人所组成的混杂阶级，这种混杂阶级处于所谓中等阶级和所谓下层阶级之间，下层阶级的某些弱点和中等阶级的绝大部分恶习它都兼而有之，既没有工人的那种大公无私的热情，也没有资产阶级的那种诚实的信条。

    这些小人，一旦受到恶毒的煽动就很容易变成凶恶的力量。那妇人就具有做恶婆的本性，那男子也是个无赖的材料。他们俩都有那种向罪恶方面猛烈发展的绝大可能性。世上有一种人就象虾似的不断退向黑暗，他们一生中只后退，不前进，并且利用经验，增加他们的丑恶，不停地日益败坏下去，心地也日益狠毒起来。这一对男女，便是那种东西。尤其是那汉子德纳第，他能让观察他的人感到紧张不安。我们对某些人只须望一眼便起戒惧之心，我们觉得他们在两方面都是阴森森的，在人后，他们惶惶终日，在人前，他们声势凶狠。他们的心，从不告人。我们无从知道他们曾干过什么，也无从知道他们将干些什么。只有他们目光中的那种遮遮掩掩的神情才会把他们揭露出来。我们只须观察他们的一言一行，便可想见他们过去生活中一些见不得人的隐事和未来生活中一些阴谋诡计。

    这个德纳第，如果我们相信他自己说的活，是当过兵的；据他自己说，他当过中士；他大概曾参加过一八一五年的那次战役①，据说还表现得相当勇敢。将来我们就会知道他究竟是怎样的一个人。在他酒店的招牌上描绘了他在作战中的一次亲身经历。那是他自己画的，因为他什么都会干一点，但都干不好。
①指滑铁卢战役。

    当时的古典主义旧小说，在《克雷荔》以后就只有《洛多伊斯卡》，那些书都还高尚，但越往后越庸俗，从斯居德黎小姐降至布陋麻拉姆夫人，从拉法耶特夫人降至巴德勒米—哈陀夫人，那一类小说都把巴黎那些看门女人的情火点燃了，甚至累及郊区。德纳第妈妈恰有足够的聪明能读那一类书籍。她寝馈其中，把自己微弱的脑力沉浸在那里，因此，在她很年轻时，甚至在年龄稍大时，她在她丈夫身旁总显出心事重重的样儿。她丈夫是一个深沉的滑头，不务正业，略通文法，既粗鄙又精明，在言情小说方面他爱读比戈—勒白朗的作品，“在性的问题上”（这是他的口头禅），他却是个正经的鲁男子，从不乱来。他妻子的年龄比他小十二到十五岁。后来，当浪漫的堕马髻渐成白发，佳人转为丑妇，德纳第太太便成为一个肥胖、恶劣、尝过一些下流小说滋味的妇人了。读坏书的人总免不了坏影响。结果，她的大女儿叫做爱潘妮。至于小女儿，那可怜的孩子，几乎叫做菊纳尔，幸而狄克莱—狄弥尼尔的一部小说，倒莫名其妙的救了她，她只叫做阿慈玛。

    此外，我们还顺便提一下，我们现在谈到的那个怪时代，在替孩子们取小名方面固然很混乱，但也不见得事事都浅薄可笑。在我们刚才指出的那种浪漫因素以外，也还有一种社会影响。目前，平民的孩子叫做阿瑟、亚福莱或阿尔封斯，子爵（假使还有子爵的话），叫做托马、皮埃尔或雅克，那都不是什么稀罕之事。“高雅”的名字移到平民身上，村野的名字移到贵人身上，那样的交流只能说是平等思想激荡的后果。新思想深入一切，无可阻挡，孩子命名的情形，便是一例。在这种混乱现象的后面存在一种伟大深刻的东西，那就是法兰西革命。

     It is not all in all sufficient to be wicked in order to prosper. The cook-shop was in a bad way.

     Thanks to the traveller's fifty-seven francs, Thenardier had been able to avoid a protest and to honor his signature.On the following month they were again in need of money.The woman took Cosette's outfit to paris, and pawned it at the pawnbroker's for sixty francs. As soon as that sum was spent, the Thenardiers grew accustomed to look on the little girl merely as a child whom they were caring for out of charity; and they treated her accordingly.As she had no longer any clothes, they dressed her in the cast-off petticoats and chemises of the Thenardier brats; that is to say, in rags. They fed her on what all the rest had left--a little better than the dog, a little worse than the cat.Moreover, the cat and the dog were her habitual table-companions; Cosette ate with them under the table, from a wooden bowl similar to theirs.

     The mother, who had established herself, as we shall see later on, at M. sur M., wrote, or, more correctly, caused to be written, a letter every month, that she might have news of her child. The Thenardiers replied invariably, "Cosette is doing wonderfully well."

     At the expiration of the first six months the mother sent seven francs for the seventh month, and continued her remittances with tolerable regularity from month to month.The year was not completed when Thenardier said:"A fine favor she is doing us, in sooth!What does she expect us to do with her seven francs?" and he wrote to demand twelve francs.The mother, whom they had persuaded into the belief that her child was happy, "and was coming on well," submitted, and forwarded the twelve francs.

     Certain natures cannot love on the one hand without hating on the other.Mother Thenardier loved her two daughters passionately, which caused her to hate the stranger.

     It is sad to think that the love of a mother can possess villainous aspects.Little as was the space occupied by Cosette, it seemed to her as though it were taken from her own, and that that little child diminished the air which her daughters breathed. This woman, like many women of her sort, had a load of caresses and a burden of blows and injuries to dispense each day. If she had not had Cosette, it is certain that her daughters, idolized as they were, would have received the whole of it; but the stranger did them the service to divert the blows to herself. Her daughters received nothing but caresses.Cosette could not make a motion which did not draw down upon her head a heavy shower of violent blows and unmerited chastisement.The sweet, feeble being, who should not have understood anything of this world or of God, incessantly punished, scolded, ill-used, beaten, and seeing beside her two little creatures like herself, who lived in a ray of dawn!

     Madame Thenardier was vicious with Cosette.Eponine and Azelma were vicious.Children at that age are only copies of their mother. The size is smaller; that is all.

     A year passed; then another.
     People in the village said:--
     "Those Thenardiers are good people.They are not rich, and yet they are bringing up a poor child who was abandoned on their hands!"

     They thought that Cosette's mother had forgotten her.

     In the meanwhile, Thenardier, having learned, it is impossible to say by what obscure means, that the child was probably a bastard, and that the mother could not acknowledge it, exacted fifteen francs a month, saying that "the creature" was growing and "eating," and threatening to send her away."Let her not bother me," he exclaimed, "or I'll fire her brat right into the middle of her secrets. I must have an increase."The mother paid the fifteen francs.

     From year to year the child grew, and so did her wretchedness.
     As long as Cosette was little, she was the scape-goat of the two other children; as soon as she began to develop a little, that is to say, before she was even five years old, she became the servant of the household.

     Five years old! the reader will say; that is not probable. Alas! it is true.Social suffering begins at all ages. Have we not recently seen the trial of a man named Dumollard, an orphan turned bandit, who, from the age of five, as the official documents state, being alone in the world, "worked for his living and stole"?

     Cosette was made to run on errands, to sweep the rooms, the courtyard, the street, to wash the dishes, to even carry burdens.The Thenardiers considered themselves all the more authorized to behave in this manner, since the mother, who was still at M. sur M., had become irregular in her payments.Some months she was in arrears.

     If this mother had returned to Montfermeil at the end of these three years, she would not have recognized her child.Cosette, so pretty and rosy on her arrival in that house, was now thin and pale. She had an indescribably uneasy look."The sly creature," said the Thenardiers.

     Injustice had made her peevish, and misery had made her ugly. Nothing remained to her except her beautiful eyes, which inspired pain, because, large as they were, it seemed as though one beheld in them a still larger amount of sadness.

     It was a heart-breaking thing to see this poor child, not yet six years old, shivering in the winter in her old rags of linen, full of holes, sweeping the street before daylight, with an enormous broom in her tiny red hands, and a tear in her great eyes.

     She was called the Lark in the neighborhood.The populace, who are fond of these figures of speech, had taken a fancy to bestow this name on this trembling, frightened, and shivering little creature, no bigger than a bird, who was awake every morning before any one else in the house or the village, and was always in the street or the fields before daybreak.

     Only the little lark never sang.

     拚命狠毒却不能发达。那客店的状况并不好。幸而有那女客的五十七个法郎，德纳第得免于官厅的追究，他出的期票也保持了信用。下一个月他仍旧缺钱，那妇人便把珂赛特的衣服饰物带到巴黎，向当铺抵押了六十法郎。那笔款子用完以后，德纳第夫妇便马上认为他们带那孩子是在救济别人，因此那孩子在他家里经常受到被救济者的对待。她的衣服被当光了以后，他们便叫她穿德纳第家小姑娘的旧裙和旧衫，就是说，破裙和破衫。他们把大家吃剩的东西给她吃，她吃得比狗好一些，比猫又差一些，并且猫和狗还经常是她的同餐者。珂赛特用一只木盆，和猫狗的木盆一样，和猫狗一同在桌子底下吃。

    她的母亲在滨海蒙特勒伊住下来了，我们以后还会谈到的，她每月写信，应该说，她每月请人写信探问她孩子的消息。德纳第夫妇千篇一 律地回复说：“珂赛特安好异常。”

    最初六个月满了以后，她母亲又把第七个月的七个法郎寄去，并且月月都如期寄去，非常准时。一年还不到，德纳第汉子便说：“她给了我们多大个面子！她要我们拿她这七个法郎干什么？”于是他写信硬要十二法郎。他们向这位母亲说她的孩子快乐平安，母亲只得曲意迁就，如数寄去十二法郎。

    某些人不能做到只爱一面而不恨其他一面。德纳第婆子酷爱她自己的两个女儿，所以也就厌恶外来的孩子。一个慈母的爱会有它丑恶的一 面，想来真叫人失望。在她家里珂赛特尽管只占一点点地方，她仍觉得她夺了她家里人的享受，仿佛那孩子把她两个小女儿呼吸的空气也减少了一样。那妇人和许多和她同一类型的妇人一样，每天都有一定数量的抚爱和一定数量的打骂必须要发泄。假使她没有珂赛特，她那两个女儿，尽管百般宠爱，一定也是要受尽她的打骂的。但那个外来的女孩做了她们的替身，代受了打和骂。她自己的两个女儿便只消受她的爱抚。珂赛特的一举一动都会受到一阵冰雹似的殴打，凶横无理之极。一时不受惩罚、辱骂、虐待、殴打，还得看着那两个和她一样的女孩儿，享受她们孩提时期的幸福！

    德纳第婆子既狠心，爱潘妮和阿慈玛便也狠心。孩子们，在那种幼小年纪总是母亲的翻版。只是版本的大小有所不同而已。一年过了，又是一年。
    那村子里的人说：
    “德纳第一家子都是好人。他们并不宽裕，却还去抚养人家扔在他们家里的一个穷孩子！”

    大家都认为，珂赛特已被她的母亲遗弃了。同时，那德纳第汉子不知又从什么密报中探听到那孩子可能是私生的，母亲不便承认，于是他硬要每月十五法郎，说那“畜生”长大了，“要东西吃”，并以送还孩子相要挟。“她敢不听我的话！”他吼道，“我也不管她瞒人不瞒人，把孩子交还给她就是。非加我的钱不可。”那母亲十五法郎照寄。

    年复一年，孩子长大了，她的苦难也增加了。珂赛特在很小时，一向是代那两个孩子受罪的替罪羊；当她的身体刚长大一点，就是说连五岁还未到之时，她又成了这家人的仆人。五岁，也许有人说，不见得真的确有其事吧。唉！其事确有。人类社会的痛苦的起始是不限年龄的。最近我们不是见过杜美拉的案子，一 个孤儿，当了土匪，据官厅的文件说，他从五岁起，便独自一人在世上“作工糊口，从事盗窃”吗？他们叫珂赛特办杂事，打扫房间、院子、街道，洗杯盘碗盏，甚至搬运重东西。她的母亲一向住在滨海蒙特勒伊，德纳第夫妇见到她近来寄钱不象从前那样准时了，便更加觉得有理由那样对待孩子。已经有几个月没有寄钱来了。

    如果那位母亲在那第三年的年末来到孟费郿，她一定会不认识她的孩子。珂赛特，当她到这一家的时候，是那样美丽，那样红润，现在则是又黄又瘦。她的举动，也不知道为什么会那样缩手缩脚。德纳第夫妇说她“鬼头鬼脑”！

    待遇的不平使她性子急躁，生活的艰苦让她变丑。她只还保有那双秀丽的眼睛，使人见了格外难受，因为她的眼睛是那么大，看去就仿佛其中的愁苦也特别的多。

    冬天，看见这个还不到六岁的可怜的孩子衣衫褴褛，在寒气中战栗，天还没亮，便拿着把大扫帚，用她的小红手紧紧握着它打扫街道，一滴泪珠挂在她那双大眼睛的眼角边上，好不叫人心痛。

    在那里，大家叫她做百灵鸟。那小妞儿原不比小鸟大多少，并且老是哆哆嗦嗦，凡事都叫她惊慌，战栗，每天早晨在那一家和那一村里老是第一个醒来，不等天亮，便已到了街上或田里，一般爱用比喻的人便替他取了这个名字。

    但是这只百灵鸟却从来不歌唱。