Page 401 - les-miserables

glances of gratitude and love fixed upon him; he should
quit that house which he had built, that little chamber! Ev-
erything seemed charming to him at that moment. Never
again should he read those books; never more should he
write on that little table of white wood; his old portress, the
only servant whom he kept, would never more bring him
his coffee in the morning. Great God! instead of that, the
convict gang, the iron necklet, the red waistcoat, the chain
on his ankle, fatigue, the cell, the camp bed all those horrors
which he knew so well! At his age, after having been what
he was! If he were only young again! but to be addressed in
his old age as ‘thou’ by any one who pleased; to be searched
by the convict-guard; to receive the galley-sergeant’s cud-
gellings; to wear iron-bound shoes on his bare feet; to have
to stretch out his leg night and morning to the hammer of
the roundsman who visits the gang; to submit to the curi-
osity of strangers, who would be told: ‘That man yonder is
the famous Jean Valjean, who was mayor of M. sur M.’; and
at night, dripping with perspiration, overwhelmed with las-
situde, their green caps drawn over their eyes, to remount,
two by two, the ladder staircase of the galleys beneath the
sergeant’s whip. Oh, what misery! Can destiny, then, be as
malicious as an intelligent being, and become as monstrous
as the human heart?
And do what he would, he always fell back upon the
heartrending dilemma which lay at the foundation of his
revery: ‘Should he remain in paradise and become a de-
mon? Should he return to hell and become an angel?’
What was to be done? Great God! what was to be done?

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