Page 1264 - les-miserables

CHAPTER V

A PROVIDENTIAL

PEEP-HOLE

Marius had lived for five years in poverty, in destitu-
tion, even in distress, but he now perceived that he had not
known real misery. True misery he had but just had a view
of. It was its spectre which had just passed before his eyes.
In fact, he who has only beheld the misery of man has seen
nothing; the misery of woman is what he must see; he who
has seen only the misery of woman has seen nothing; he
must see the misery of the child.
When a man has reached his last extremity, he has
reached his last resources at the same time. Woe to the de-
fenceless beings who surround him! Work, wages, bread,
fire, courage, good will, all fail him simultaneously. The
light of day seems extinguished without, the moral light
within; in these shadows man encounters the feebleness of
the woman and the child, and bends them violently to ig-
nominy.
Then all horrors become possible. Despair is surround-
ed with fragile partitions which all open on either vice or

1264 Les Miserables