Page 453 - les-miserables

of the most dangerous description, a malefactor named Jean
Valjean, whom justice has long been in search of, and who,
eight years ago, on emerging from the galleys at Toulon,
committed a highway robbery, accompanied by violence,
on the person of a child, a Savoyard named Little Gervais;
a crime provided for by article 383 of the Penal Code, the
right to try him for which we reserve hereafter, when his
identity shall have been judicially established. He has just
committed a fresh theft; it is a case of a second offence; con-
demn him for the fresh deed; later on he will be judged for
the old crime.’ In the face of this accusation, in the face of
the unanimity of the witnesses, the accused appeared to be
astonished more than anything else; he made signs and ges-
tures which were meant to convey No, or else he stared at
the ceiling: he spoke with difficulty, replied with embarrass-
ment, but his whole person, from head to foot, was a denial;
he was an idiot in the presence of all these minds ranged in
order of battle around him, and like a stranger in the midst
of this society which was seizing fast upon him; neverthe-
less, it was a question of the most menacing future for him;
the likeness increased every moment, and the entire crowd
surveyed, with more anxiety than he did himself, that sen-
tence freighted with calamity, which descended ever closer
over his head; there was even a glimpse of a possibility af-
forded; besides the galleys, a possible death penalty, in case
his identity were established, and the affair of Little Ger-
vais were to end thereafter in condemnation. Who was this
man? what was the nature of his apathy? was it imbecility
or craft? Did he understand too well, or did he not under-

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