Page 1335 - les-miserables

moonlight between two blocks of shadow. One of these
blocks of shadow entirely covered the wall against which
Marius was leaning, so that he disappeared within it.
Mother Jondrette raised her eyes, did not see Marius,
took the two chairs, the only ones which Marius possessed,
and went away, letting the door fall heavily to behind her.
She re-entered the lair.
‘Here are the two chairs.’
‘And here is the lantern. Go down as quick as you can.’
She hastily obeyed, and Jondrette was left alone.
He placed the two chairs on opposite sides of the table,
turned the chisel in the brazier, set in front of the fireplace
an old screen which masked the chafing-dish, then went
to the corner where lay the pile of rope, and bent down as
though to examine something. Marius then recognized the
fact, that what he had taken for a shapeless mass was a very
well-made rope-ladder, with wooden rungs and two hooks
with which to attach it.
This ladder, and some large tools, veritable masses of
iron, which were mingled with the old iron piled up be-
hind the door, had not been in the Jondrette hovel in the
morning, and had evidently been brought thither in the af-
ternoon, during Marius’ absence.
‘Those are the utensils of an edge-tool maker,’ thought
Marius.
Had Marius been a little more learned in this line, he
would have recognized in what he took for the engines of
an edge-tool maker, certain instruments which will force
a lock or pick a lock, and others which will cut or slice, the

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