Page 1268 - les-miserables

CHAPTER VI

THE WILD MAN

IN HIS LAIR

Cities, like forests, have their caverns in which all the
most wicked and formidable creatures which they contain
conceal themselves. Only, in cities, that which thus conceals
itself is ferocious, unclean, and petty, that is to say, ugly; in
forests, that which conceals itself is ferocious, savage, and
grand, that is to say, beautiful. Taking one lair with anoth-
er, the beast’s is preferable to the man’s. Caverns are better
than hovels.
What Marius now beheld was a hovel.
Marius was poor, and his chamber was poverty-strick-
en, but as his poverty was noble, his garret was neat. The
den upon which his eye now rested was abject, dirty, fetid,
pestiferous, mean, sordid. The only furniture consisted of a
straw chair, an infirm table, some old bits of crockery, and
in two of the corners, two indescribable pallets; all the light
was furnishd by a dormer window of four panes, draped
with spiders’ webs. Through this aperture there penetrat-
ed just enough light to make the face of a man appear like

1268 Les Miserables