Page 74 - les-miserables

balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. They
have been suffering longer.’
Another silence ensued. The conventionary was the first
to break it. He raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of
his cheek between his thumb and his forefinger, as one does
mechanically when one interrogates and judges, and ap-
pealed to the Bishop with a gaze full of all the forces of the
death agony. It was almost an explosion.
‘Yes, sir, the people have been suffering a long while. And
hold! that is not all, either; why have you just questioned me
and talked to me about Louis XVII.? I know you not. Ever
since I have been in these parts I have dwelt in this enclosure
alone, never setting foot outside, and seeing no one but that
child who helps me. Your name has reached me in a con-
fused manner, it is true, and very badly pronounced, I must
admit; but that signifies nothing: clever men have so many
ways of imposing on that honest goodman, the people. By
the way, I did not hear the sound of your carriage; you have
left it yonder, behind the coppice at the fork of the roads, no
doubt. I do not know you, I tell you. You have told me that
you are the Bishop; but that affords me no information as
to your moral personality. In short, I repeat my question.
Who are you? You are a bishop; that is to say, a prince of
the church, one of those gilded men with heraldic bearings
and revenues, who have vast prebends,— the bishopric of
D—— fifteen thousand francs settled income, ten thousand
in perquisites; total, twenty-five thousand francs,— who
have kitchens, who have liveries, who make good cheer, who
eat moor-hens on Friday, who strut about, a lackey before,

74 Les Miserables