Page 383 - les-miserables

and worthy citizen Monsieur Madeleine would emerge more
honored, more peaceful, and more respected than ever—if
any one had told him that, he would have tossed his head
and regarded the words as those of a madman. Well, all this
was precisely what had just come to pass; all that accumu-
lation of impossibilities was a fact, and God had permitted
these wild fancies to become real things!
His revery continued to grow clearer. He came more and
more to an understanding of his position.
It seemed to him that he had but just waked up from
some inexplicable dream, and that he found himself slip-
ping down a declivity in the middle of the night, erect,
shivering, holding back all in vain, on the very brink of the
abyss. He distinctly perceived in the darkness a stranger,
a man unknown to him, whom destiny had mistaken for
him, and whom she was thrusting into the gulf in his stead;
in order that the gulf might close once more, it was neces-
sary that some one, himself or that other man, should fall
into it: he had only let things take their course.
The light became complete, and he acknowledged this
to himself: That his place was empty in the galleys; that do
what he would, it was still awaiting him; that the theft from
little Gervais had led him back to it; that this vacant place
would await him, and draw him on until he filled it; that
this was inevitable and fatal; and then he said to himself,
‘that, at this moment, he had a substitute; that it appeared
that a certain Champmathieu had that ill luck, and that, as
regards himself, being present in the galleys in the person
of that Champmathieu, present in society under the name

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