Page 971 - les-miserables

gnashing of teeth, hatred, desperate viciousness, a cry of
rage against human society, a sarcasm against heaven.
What results flowed from the second? Blessings and
love.
And in these two places, so similar yet so unlike, these
two species of beings who were so very unlike, were under-
going the same work, expiation.
Jean Valjean understood thoroughly the expiation of the
former; that personal expiation, the expiation for one’s self.
But he did not understand that of these last, that of creatures
without reproach and without stain, and he trembled as he
asked himself: The expiation of what? What expiation?
A voice within his conscience replied: ‘The most divine
of human generosities, the expiation for others.’
Here all personal theory is withheld; we are only the nar-
rator; we place ourselves at Jean Valjean’s point of view, and
we translate his impressions.
Before his eyes he had the sublime summit of abnega-
tion, the highest possible pitch of virtue; the innocence
which pardons men their faults, and which expiates in their
stead; servitude submitted to, torture accepted, punish-
ment claimed by souls which have not sinned, for the sake
of sparing it to souls which have fallen; the love of humanity
swallowed up in the love of God, but even there preserving
its distinct and mediatorial character; sweet and feeble be-
ings possessing the misery of those who are punished and
the smile of those who are recompensed.
And he remembered that he had dared to murmur!
Often, in the middle of the night, he rose to listen to the

971