Page 1948 - les-miserables

CHAPTER II

THE STREET URCHIN

AN ENEMY OF LIGHT

How long did he remain thus? What was the ebb and flow
of this tragic meditation? Did he straighten up? Did he re-
main bowed? Had he been bent to breaking? Could he still
rise and regain his footing in his conscience upon some-
thing solid? He probably would not have been able to tell
himself.
The street was deserted. A few uneasy bourgeois, who
were rapidly returning home, hardly saw him. Each one for
himself in times of peril. The lamp-lighter came as usual
to light the lantern which was situated precisely opposite
the door of No. 7, and then went away. Jean Valjean would
not have appeared like a living man to any one who had
examined him in that shadow. He sat there on the post of
his door, motionless as a form of ice. There is congealment
in despair. The alarm bells and a vague and stormy uproar
were audible. In the midst of all these convulsions of the
bell mingled with the revolt, the clock of Saint-Paul struck
eleven, gravely and without haste; for the tocsin is man; the

1948 Les Miserables