Page 2183 - les-miserables

light, the shore, very narrow but sufficient for escape. The
distant quays, Paris, that gulf in which one so easily hides
oneself, the broad horizon, liberty. On the right, down
stream, the bridge of Jena was discernible, on the left, up-
stream, the bridge of the Invalides; the place would have
been a propitious one in which to await the night and to
escape. It was one of the most solitary points in Paris; the
shore which faces the Grand-Caillou. Flies were entering
and emerging through the bars of the grating.
It might have been half-past eight o’clock in the evening.
The day was declining.
Jean Valjean laid Marius down along the wall, on the
dry portion of the vaulting, then he went to the grating and
clenched both fists round the bars; the shock which he gave
it was frenzied, but it did not move. The grating did not stir.
Jean Valjean seized the bars one after the other, in the hope
that he might be able to tear away the least solid, and to
make of it a lever wherewith to raise the door or to break
the lock. Not a bar stirred. The teeth of a tiger are not more
firmly fixed in their sockets. No lever; no prying possible.
The obstacle was invincible. There was no means of open-
ing the gate.
Must he then stop there? What was he to do? What was
to become of him? He had not the strength to retrace his
steps, to recommence the journey which he had already
taken. Besides, how was he to again traverse that quagmire
whence he had only extricated himself as by a miracle? And
after the quagmire, was there not the police patrol, which
assuredly could not be twice avoided? And then, whither

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