Page 161 - les-miserables

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 loos-
ened, 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 con-
victs who were forever dreaming of escape, ended by making
a veritable science of force and skill combined. It is the sci-
ence 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 him-
self 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

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