Page 2288 - les-miserables

The coachman answered: ‘The night was very dark.’
Basque and Nicolette, all in a flutter, had looked only at
their young master all covered with blood.
The porter, whose candle had lighted the tragic arrival
of Marius, had been the only one to take note of the man in
question, and this is the description that he gave:
‘That man was terrible.’
Marius had the blood-stained clothing which he had
worn when he had been brought back to his grandfather
preserved, in the hope that it would prove of service in his
researches.
On examining the coat, it was found that one skirt had
been torn in a singular way. A piece was missing.
One evening, Marius was speaking in the presence of
Cosette and Jean Valjean of the whole of that singular ad-
venture, of the innumerable inquiries which he had made,
and of the fruitlessness of his efforts. The cold countenance
of ‘Monsieur Fauchelevent’ angered him.
He exclaimed, with a vivacity which had something of
wrath in it:
‘Yes, that man, whoever he may have been, was sublime.
Do you know what he did, sir? He intervened like an arch-
angel. He must have flung himself into the midst of the
battle, have stolen me away, have opened the sewer, have
dragged me into it and have carried me through it! He must
have traversed more than a league and a half in those fright-
ful subterranean galleries, bent over, weighed down, in the
dark, in the cess-pool,—more than a league and a half, sir,
with a corpse upon his back! And with what object? With

2288 Les Miserables