Page 2143 - les-miserables

CHAPTER I

THE SEWER AND

ITS SURPRISES

It was in the sewers of Paris that Jean Valjean found him-
self.
Still another resemblance between Paris and the sea. As
in the ocean, the diver may disappear there.
The transition was an unheard-of one. In the very heart
of the city, Jean Valjean had escaped from the city, and, in
the twinkling of an eye, in the time required to lift the cover
and to replace it, he had passed from broad daylight to com-
plete obscurity, from midday to midnight, from tumult to
silence, from the whirlwind of thunders to the stagnation
of the tomb, and, by a vicissitude far more tremendous even
than that of the Rue Polonceau, from the most extreme peril
to the most absolute obscurity.
An abrupt fall into a cavern; a disappearance into the se-
cret trap-door of Paris; to quit that street where death was
on every side, for that sort of sepulchre where there was life,
was a strange instant. He remained for several seconds as
though bewildered; listening, stupefied. The waste-trap of

2143