Page 2182 - les-miserables

extremity of the vault, far, very far away in front of him, he
perceived a light. This time it was not that terrible light; it
was good, white light. It was daylight. Jean Valjean saw the
outlet.
A damned soul, who, in the midst of the furnace, should
suddenly perceive the outlet of Gehenna, would experience
what Jean Valjean felt. It would fly wildly with the stumps of
its burned wings towards that radiant portal. Jean Valjean
was no longer conscious of fatigue, he no longer felt Mar-
ius’ weight, he found his legs once more of steel, he ran
rather than walked. As he approached, the outlet became
more and more distinctly defined. It was a pointed arch,
lower than the vault, which gradually narrowed, and nar-
rower than the gallery, which closed in as the vault grew
lower. The tunnel ended like the interior of a funnel; a faulty
construction, imitated from the wickets of penitentiaries,
logical in a prison, illogical in a sewer, and which has since
been corrected.
Jean Valjean reached the outlet.
There he halted.
It certainly was the outlet, but he could not get out.
The arch was closed by a heavy grating, and the grating,
which, to all appearance, rarely swung on its rusty hing-
es, was clamped to its stone jamb by a thick lock, which,
red with rust, seemed like an enormous brick. The keyhole
could be seen, and the robust latch, deeply sunk in the iron
staple. The door was plainly double-locked. It was one of
those prison locks which old Paris was so fond of lavishing.
Beyond the grating was the open air, the river, the day-

2182 Les Miserables