#lm 1.2.13

[la-pheacienne]

On the meaning of "Misérable"

"The point of departure, like the point of arrival, for all his thoughts, was hatred of human law; that hatred which, if it be not arrested in its development by some providential incident, becomes, within a given time, the hatred of society, then the hatred of the human race, then the hatred of creation, and which manifests itself by a vague, incessant, and brutal desire to do harm to some living being, no matter whom. It will be perceived that it was not without reason that Jean Valjean’s passport described him as a very dangerous man".

Les Misérables, Volume 1, Book 2, Chapter 7, The Interior of Despair

"First of all, even before examining himself and reflecting, all bewildered, like one who seeks to save himself, he tried to find the child in order to return his money to him; then, when he recognized the fact that this was impossible, he halted in despair. At the moment when he exclaimed “I am a wretch!” he had just perceived what he was, and he was already separated from himself to such a degree, that he seemed to himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom, and as if he had, there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galley-convict, Jean Valjean, cudgel in hand, his blouse on his hips, his knapsack filled with stolen objects on his back, with his resolute and gloomy visage, with his thoughts filled with abominable projects. Excess of unhappiness had, as we have remarked, made him in some sort a visionary. This, then, was in the nature of a vision. He actually saw that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by him".

Les Miserables, Vol. 1, Book 2, Chapter 13, Little Gervais

Continuing my post on the greek translation of the title of Les Misérables, what's interesting here is the phrase "I am a wretch!". It's interesting because in french it's "Je suis un misérable!". The greek translator chooses to use the greek word "athlios" here, the same one he used for the title of the book, and I think that was a good choice. I don't understand why the english translator replaced the word "miserable" with the word "wretch", probably because the word "miserable" does not exactly convey what Valjean describes himself as in this particular chapter? "Miserable" does not necessarily have a deeply pejorative connotation, whereas the word "wretch" means both "an unfortunate or unhappy person" and "a despicable or contemptible person". Maybe the differences are small but in my mind the two words just feel different. Here the french word "misérable" is used in the latter sense, I think (= despicable and contemptible person) so "wretch" does feel closer to that.

However, it would be important to use the same word as the title, because Hugo clearly wanted to associate both Valjean's particular state of mind and the objective situation he was in with the title of the book. That's why Valjean exclaims "Je suis un misérable!". That's what the book is about. And what is that? A "very dangerous man", a "hideous" ex convict with "abominable" thoughts, a man "horrified" by himself. He's not just miserable, he's not just poor, he's not even just an outcast. He's not just rejected by society because it's not just society that hates him. It's that he has truly actually become a hateful human being, capable of the worst, so much that he is horrified by himself. He is a man who steals little kids and attacks the only person that has treated him with kindness, contemplating whether or not to crush his skull. That's the very essence of what a "Misérable" is in the context of this book.

Final note (disclaimer, I'm not at all specialized in translations or in languages, that's just my superficial opinion): After a brief comparison of the greek and the english translation with the french text, what I can say is that globally the use of some words, phrases, expressions in greek just hits different in ways the english vocabulary can't always convey, and that's probably because of the particularity of the greek language, mainly the syntactic versatility and the richness of the vocabulary. That is why it is practically impossible to find the exact equivalent of "Athlios" (greek word for misérable) in english because that word alone has a very particular magnitude, meaning both miserable and despicable in equal measure. However, what the english translator maybe lacks in "depth", he gains in rigor and scrupulousness, I think, because our guy is not very meticulous lol (not a surprise culturally we are not famous for that). So I definitely do not want to discredit the english translation.

[the-wraxall-illustrations]

[secretmellowblog]

I love how the parallel between Valjean’s crisis after the Bishop and Javert’s crisis after the barricades is so strong that their thought processes are often described with nearly the exact same metaphors.

The musical conveying this by having them sing the same melody is such a perfect translation of the way their dialogue/descriptions echo each other in the novel...Like:

Valjean: 

“Is it true that I am to be released?” he said, in an almost inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep.

Vs Javert: 

As though in a dream, (Javert) murmured rather than uttered this question: “What are you doing here?”

—

Valjean:

Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

Vs Javert: 

He perceived amid the shadows the terrible rising of an unknown moral sun; it horrified and dazzled him. An owl forced to the gaze of an eagle.

—

Valjean:

He no longer knew where he really was. 

Vs Javert:

Where did he stand? He sought to comprehend his position, and could no longer find his bearings.(…) He no longer understood himself. 

Valjean: 

At times he would have actually preferred to be in prison with the gendarmes, and that things should not have happened in this way; it would have agitated him less.

Vs Javert:

But then, why had he permitted that man to leave him alive? He had the right to be killed in that barricade. He should have asserted that right. It would have been better to summon the other insurgents to his succor against Jean Valjean, to get himself shot by force.

—

Valjean:

He actually saw that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by him. 

Vs Javert:

He conceived a horror of himself. 

—

Valjean:

He could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the old man.

Vs Javert:

He had not yielded without resistance to that monster, to that infamous angel, to that hideous hero, who enraged almost as much as he amazed him. 

Valjean:

 By one of those singular effects, which are peculiar to this sort of ecstasies, in proportion as his reverie continued, as the Bishop grew great and resplendent in his eyes, so did Jean Valjean grow less and vanish. After a certain time he was no longer anything more than a shade. All at once he disappeared. The Bishop alone remained; he filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance.

Vs Javert:

Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean glorified he beheld himself, Javert, degraded. (…)

Javert, the spy of order, incorruptibility in the service of the police, the bull-dog providence of society, vanquished and hurled to earth; and, erect, at the summit of all that ruin, a man with a green cap on his head and a halo round his brow; this was the astounding confusion to which he had come; this was the fearful vision which he bore within his soul.

—

Valjean:

That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to him and had not touched him.

Vs Javert:

All that he had believed in melted away. Truths which he did not wish to recognize were besieging him, inexorably. Henceforth, he must be a different man.

Valjean:

He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it seemed frightful to him.

Vs Javert: 

He felt himself emptied, useless, put out of joint with his past life, turned out, dissolved. Authority was dead within him. He had no longer any reason for existing.

Valjean:

Did he have a distinct perception of what might result to him from his adventure at Digne? Did he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or importune the spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the best of men, he would be the worst; that it behooved him now, so to speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; that if he wished to become good he must become an angel; that if he wished to remain evil, he must become a monster? (….) did he catch some shadow of all this in his thought, in a confused way?

Misfortune certainly, as we have said, does form the education of the intelligence; nevertheless, it is doubtful whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have here indicated. If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught glimpses of, rather than saw them, and they only succeeded in throwing him into an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion.

Vs Javert:

God, always within man, and refractory, He, the true conscience, to the false; a prohibition to the spark to die out; an order to the ray to remember the sun; an injunction to the soul to recognize the veritable absolute when confronted with the fictitious absolute, humanity which cannot be lost; the human heart indestructible; that splendid phenomenon, the finest, perhaps, of all our interior marvels, did Javert understand this? Did Javert penetrate it? Did Javert account for it to himself? Evidently he did not. But beneath the pressure of that incontestable incomprehensibility he felt his brain bursting.

..And these are only the lines I've caught tonight. I don't know, as much as Les Mis adaptations love to focus on Valjean and Javert (often without understanding them cough bbc les mis cough) I feel like there are very few that Get how much both of them were broken by the same prison system, and how the trauma of that makes them view themselves and their own feelings through similar lenses.

[cliozaur]

This is such a beautiful chapter in terms of presenting the inner turmoil of a man who is going through a revelation and a transformation. It is a bit similar to the "Javert Derailed" chapter (but this one is much shorter).

Rereading it this time, it dawned upon me that Jean Valjean’s revelation about his former self stayed with him for the rest of his life. He will always see himself the way he saw himself after the Little Gervais incident:

"At the moment when he exclaimed 'I am a wretch!' he had just perceived what he was, and he was already separated from himself to such a degree that he seemed to himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom. It was as if he had, there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galley-convict, Jean Valjean, cudgel in hand, his blouse on his hips, his knapsack filled with stolen objects on his back, with his resolute and gloomy visage, with his thoughts filled with abominable projects."

It speaks volumes about his self-loathing. And then:

"His past life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness, his internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold plans of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop’s, the last thing that he had done, that theft of forty sous from a child, a crime all the more cowardly and monstrous since it had come after the Bishop’s pardon—all this recurred to his mind and appeared clearly to him, but with a clarity which he had never hitherto witnessed. He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it seemed frightful to him. In the meantime, a gentle light rested over this life and this soul. It seemed to him that he beheld Satan by the light of Paradise."

This is exactly how he will see himself for the most part in the future, despite all his good deeds, generosity, kindness, and redemption. And this is how he will present himself to Marius in the last chapters of the book. It is profoundly sad.

[pureanonofficial]

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Okay now that we’ve gotten to LM 1.2.13 in Les Mis Letters, I have to post my absolute favorite take on the Petit-Gervais scene — it’s so good that I’ve been thinking about it ever since I first saw it. It’s from the first episode of Les Miserables 1967, a BBC miniseries.

I love how brusque and rude Valjean is — how little he is listening to Petit-Gervais, and how clearly he is wrapped up in his own thoughts. I love the horrified shock of realization he has when he sees he stepped on the coin. I love how desperate his cries of “Petit-Gervais!” are. I love how he stumbles and falls over himself. 

But the best part of this scene is the way he cries.

Depictions of emotional male grief are rarer than they should be in visual media, and that makes this scene even more powerful. Valjean in this scene cries — no, gutturally sobs for a full 45 seconds, to the end of the episode in fact. We are not spared from his grief —we are not allowed to look away. He sobs, horribly, brokenly, in the way we have all cried, when we’ve done something wrong, and know there is no way of fixing it. It is an incredibly powerful scene, especially when taken in context with the rest of the episode. Frank Finlay’s Valjean is very internal and rough until this scene — this is the first real part we see him break.

Although I have seen many takes on this scene, 1967′s unflinching depiction of Valjean’s grief makes this the most memorable for me.

[dolphin1812]

I really hope that Mme Magloire and Mlle Baptistine sleep as peacefully as the bishop does, because after being robbed, I don’t think they deserve the scare of waking up at three in the morning just to realize the man who stole from them is right outside their door.

[pilferingapples]

LM 1.2.13 History Notes: Petite Gervais, and Savoyards

Haven't seen this in the tags, and I still think it's really interesting context, so here, have a post about Petit Gervais before he's completely Gone from our narrative! (note: this is largely taken from Graham Robb's The Discovery of France: From the Revolution to The First World War , a book I definitely recommend to anyone wanting more French History Context!): Petit Gervais is definitely a chimney sweep. Hapgood's translation cuts that specific phrase out (others leave it in!), but to someone in Hugo’s era, even without the specific mention of him being a chimneysweep, it would be obvious that was his line of work, because that’s what migrant Savoyard boys were. Every year, a large migration of new kids headed north, towards Paris. When they got there: 

...they split up into village groups. Each had its own dormitory and canteen. A Spartan building in a  particular street might look like a part of Paris when in fact it was a colony of Savoy controlled by a Savoyard sweep-master. The master might also sell pots and pans or rabbit-skins and keep an eye on the boys as they went about the city shouting “Haut en bas!” (”Top to bottom!”). If a boy stole money or misbehaved, he was punished according to Savoyard traditiion. Boys who fled into the back streets were always found; chimney sweeps knew the city as well as any policeman and better than most Parisians…

The sweeps who avoided asphyxiation, lung disease, and blindness, and who never fell from a roof, might one  day set up on their own as stove-fitters.  Nearly all of them returned home to marry. Their tie to the homeland was never broken.  When he emerged from the chimney onto the roof of a Parisian apartment -block, a Savoyard sweep could always see the Alps.” - Graham Robb,  The Discovery of France

 So Petit-Gervais– and other Savoyard children like him (it was supposed to be just boys, but of course some girls joined too, with all the extra risk that entailed)  isn’t just a randomly wandering parentless kid. He’s a boy learning a trade, and he’s either off to Paris to essentially serve his apprenticeship, probably working for his money along the way,  or coming back home from Paris. Given how young sweeps were when they aged out of the job (only REALLY little kids can fit in chimneys, after all) and how much money Gervais is carrying, I’d *guess* he’s on the way home from the big city, but it could be seen either way. 

Anyway, point being, Petit-Gervais isn’t some Random Encounter with a poor kid; he’s part of an organized child workforce, with parents who probably lived through the same thing--a workforce that took on an enormous amount of risk, as Hugo shows, however cheerful they might be.

[katenepveu]

Today's Les Mis Letters, 1.2.13, is actually where I left off listening in the audiobook when I was getting ahead—more specifically, I left off just a bit into the chapter, when Jean Valjean has just stolen the boy's coin. I stopped there because I'd finished whatever household task I was doing, and wanted to switch to reading because the audiobook, while very skillfully narrated, was not the optimal experience for me. And then, because I was far enough ahead and wanted to go back to my other giant 19th c. novel, Moby Dick, I stayed partway through the chapter until today.

And I really didn't know what would happen! A couple of weeks ago, I visited @bookelfe and @artificialities and told them, I just don't know what to expect, I have the vague impression that he's going to be redeemed, but has this been enough or is there more—this book is called "The Fall," after all? And they exercised excellent poker faces and said not a word. (I genuinely know almost nothing about this book's plot.)

So now I know! And what I said yesterday about needing to spend time with the Bishop to believe that this would happen—it applies even more to today.

I very much like this description:

He felt indistinctly that the old priest’s forgiveness was the greatest assault and the most deadly attack he had ever been rocked by; that if he could resist such clemency his heart would be hardened once and for all; that if he gave in to it, he would have to give up the hate that the actions of other men had filled his heart with for so many years and which he relished; that this time, he had to conquer or be conquered and that the struggle, a colossal and decisive struggle, was now on between his own rottenness and the goodness of that man.

Do I agree with it? Not sure! But it's good prose.

Finally, I like that he could not find Petit-Gervais.

It'll be interesting being no longer ahead! Though I may read ahead this weekend, as I have train rides, and daily reading is easy to get behind on.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 1.2.13 ‘Petit-Gervais‘

I’m not even going to try to be complete, because it’s so much.

Observations:

- The amazing scenery. That barren landscape, the changing light, the bushes that seem to be pursuing someone, because everything Valjean sees is about pursuit and arrest--I’ve said it before, but he and Javert share So Much of their default metaphors and worldview. The nothingness of the deserted mountain calls to mind the Man Overboard chapter.

- “Dark thoughts and the spirit of perdition” and “give it to God” vs. “spirit of perversity” and “give it to God Almighty.” Jean Valjean is misquoting and twisting the bishop’s words on the page. He’s taking as censure something that actually reads more like Myriel trying to give him peace.

- It struck me once again how almost incidental the bishop feels. He’s important, yes, but this isn’t the titanic struggle between opposite forces that Valjean makes it out to be. All along, Valjean has been trying to keep his head down. He’s been full of (justifiable!) anger and hatred, but he was eager to go back to a life among men, and he cared enormously about respect and belonging. He was in a vulnerable transitional phase, morally struggling, preferring honest interactions and only falling back on lies and theft when those kept being denied him. He was at a crossroads, and Myriel gave him a little shove down the honest road.

Jean Valjean’s take on it:

A gigantic and decisive struggle had begun between his own wickedness, and the goodness of this man.

...Oh, sweetie, no. That’s not what’s happening.

He can’t escape the idea that goodness was imposed on him by an outside force. He can’t own the fact that he’s been loving and gentle and wishing for this path all along. He can’t accept that there's something genuinely special about his being able to radically transform himself when he was offered the chance. He can’t face that his transformation is his own work.

The oversimplified summary of this story reads like: there was an angry, suffering, brutal ex-con, who stole from a bishop who was kind to him. The bishop not only covered for him, he gave him something of even more value, forcing the man to reevaluate the world and his life.

That’s what Valjean thinks happened. That’s what he’ll try to do for Montparnasse later on. That’s what Marius will probably be vaguely thinking he can do for Thenardier.

It sounds like the way people want arguing with other people about politics to work. If you just convey your case well enough, they’ll have no choice but to say “My God, you’re Right” and change their lives.

But nothing actually works that way, and the fact that it doesn’t has nothing to do with inherent goodness. It’s just--changing people’s minds is hard. You can spend your life doing what Myriel does, and you’re only going to reach the very few who were ready for the exact message at the exact moment. Even that is a matter of luck.

This is a book about trying to reach people and change their minds, both within the text and as the aim of the book itself. Valjean was reached. Grantaire was reached. Cosette was more than reached. Javert was maybe as reached as he could have been. Montparnasse and Thenardier and the people of Paris were not reached this time.

I think a central question of the text is about whether the reader will be one of those reached. The text is doing a lot under the surface to acknowledge how difficult that is.

- It feels right that we don’t ever know what the result was. Valjean had his revelation and changed his ways, and he won’t treat a kid this way again. But Petit-Gervais is terrorized and most of his life’s savings is gone. It’s October. Winter is coming, and it’s already cold in the mountains, and we don’t know what becomes of him. We know from the Cravatte chapter that children were expected to roam freely in places where there were thieves. No one bothers the shepherd boys--but Jean Valjean does. That feels like an implication that this is beyond the pale even for thieves.

- In other sad Valjean observations: Valjean thinks his knapsack is full of stolen goods. It literally isn’t. He tried to steal things, but the bishop co-opted that by giving him the items, making them Not Stolen. He seems to have taken Petit-Gervais’s money in a subconscious effort to preserve what feels like the status quo. He needs to be holding something stolen to keep his self-image.

- It’s so sad that he thinks goodness is an eclipse. In his mind’s eye, to become good everything that was Jean Valjean has to dissolve and disappear. He’ll modify this slightly after Madeleine, but I don’t think he ever really gets over it.

It’s all a pretty good argument for why a friend or a therapist is better than a revelatory lightning strike. If only Valjean could just come back and talk it through next week. Then Myriel could go, “Wait, wait, hold up, that’s literally not what I said.”

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 1.2.13 “Petit Gervais”

(I’m sorry this is so long. This is a combination of my observations from my February reread and from this reading.)

Valjean leaves Digne the way that he came; he does it blindly, but he doesn’t realize he’s retracing his steps. And as he retraces his steps, he also potentially falls back into old habits and the behaviors that are familiar, rather than the changes Myriel, uh, strongly conveyed. Hugo is so heavy handed with his foreshadowing metaphors.

“He was prey to a mass of new emotions. He felt somewhat angry, without knowing at whom. He could not have said whether he was touched or humiliated.” I know we all kind of went over this in the brick club posts for the last chapter, but it makes perfect sense to me that we get Myriel’s “taking” of Valjean’s soul in the last chapter but we don’t get Valjean’s emotional reaction until now. All of the last chapter was from Myriel’s point of view, and we needed that for that last glimpse into the bishop’s life and motivations. This chapter jumps back into Valjean, so we do get his humiliated, angry, confused feelings regarding this bishop suddenly tricking him into “promising” to be good and claiming his soul for god.

Up until this point, it seems as though Valjean’s opinions of religion have been neutral, if not mildly negative. The bishop shows him more kindness than he has probably ever been shown in his life, even pre-prison. Turns out that kindness wasn’t unconditional, but I think the fact that it’s this spiritual, sort of “conceptual” condition makes it very different for Valjean. No one taking his labor or money or possessions. Instead it’s his “soul,” something I think at this point he’s only just starting to properly think about in a positive way as well.

“At times he would really have preferred to be in prison with the gendarmes, and free from this new development; it would have troubled him less.” I have so many feelings about this line. Change is hard. Especially if you have mired yourself in anger and negative emotions for nearly 20 years, especially if you have used that anger and hatred as a cornerstone to survival that entire time. It’s so much easier to go back to what you know, even if it hurts, because it’s a pain you’re used to and you know what to expect. But having to face a new experience, and a change in mentality, and to have to work to change your instincts and habits, that’s huge and terrifying and unfamiliar so it feels like it would be much more painful and uncomfortable. Of course he would rather go with the gendarmes. Sure the galleys are awful but at least he’ll know what to expect and he knows how he’ll be treated so there’s no expectation of rejection or disappointment or failure on the other side of that. Goodness, however, especially Myriel’s expectation of goodness, that’s unfamiliar and scary because he could potentially fail, because maybe it won’t work since he still has that yellow passport, because he has no idea what’s on the other side.

Valjean’s sudden and uncomfortable memories of childhood are so sad. Like, the memory of being innocent and free and being able to smell flowers just because is almost painful to him, like he can’t really fathom it anymore.

I’d love to know why Valjean was sitting in the thicket. Was it a habit from prison and/or prison escapes, like is he instinctively hiding, sort of subconsciously afraid of rearrest? Or was it kind of normal for someone who’s out in the middle of nowhere to take refuge in a thicket as evening came on?

“Ignorance and innocence” make Petit Gervais unafraid and confident. I’m not sure if this is an intentional contrast between the “ignorance and guilt” or “ignorance and malicious intent” types of personalities he portrays, which are often desperate and fearful in a way that makes them falsely confident, but it is interesting.

Every time I read this book, I don’t know what to make of Valjean’s “Who is it?” From the next dialogue lines it sounds like a way to make Petit Gervais leave, but from the narration it sound like a practically unconscious, almost dreamlike state. I think this is the point where Valjean is actively battling his instincts. It’s dreamlike because this is where habit takes over; perhaps this is the type of interaction inmates often had with each other, and he’s more preoccupied with thinking about everything else so he’s just on autopilot at this point. He probably spent a lot of time in prison just on autopilot, because after 20 years he probably knew what to expect. Which maybe is one of the reason it upsets him so much. If he was on the cusp of making an autonomous decision about his life, thinking it over and trying to figure out how to think about all this stuff he hasn’t thought of in 20 years (or ever), and then he mindlessly acts in a specific way when he still hasn’t figured out even what he feels yet.

Valjean’s reaction after Petit Gervais leaves sounds like a panic attack. Hugo says “feverish,” but being hot (or numb) and hyperventilating and being unable to really focus on or take in anything, all that sounds like a panic attack.

Which, okay, disregarding what I said above, I’m now also kind of wondering if half the reason the interaction with Petit Gervais goes the way it does is because Valjean is basically on the very edge of this panic attack and all his mental reserves are spent trying to stave it off. Which is why he’s mildly confused about the money under his shoe; he mostly just wanted the boy to go away, and the rest of the actions were (like I said) habit and instinct kicking in while the main parts of his brain were elsewhere.

The 40 franc piece as an eye staring at him, judging him, is a fairly common motif in the book. Valjean spends a lot of time personifying inanimate objects as judges or accusers.

FMA translates Valjean calling Petit Gervais’ name as “a desolate and terrible voice,” while Hapgood says “most formidable and the most disconsolate that it was possible to hear”. (Those are the two translations I have access to; I wish I could compare the others.) Hugo also says that it’s a voice that would have terrified the boy had he not already been far away. Normally I go for FMA but this time I think I like Hapgood better? “Disconsolate” seems to be a better word for Valjean’s upset state.

Hugo again showing the stark difference between Myriel and other priests. This priest on horseback wants nothing to do with Valjean, and in fact is more afraid of Valjean than wanting to help him.

Valjean doesn’t try to give the priest Petit Gervais’ forty franc piece; he gives him 4 five franc pieces. He retains the responsibility and/or hope of finding and returning the money. He doesn’t pawn that off on someone else; I think the prospect of returning the money also contains within it the prospect of reversing his deed, reversing the negative instinct and becoming good instead. When he can’t find Petit Gervais no matter how much he searches, that’s the moment when he starts to realize that he can’t just try and reverse a deed already done in order to become good; he has to change everything.

Pride vs tenderness here. I keep thinking about how the breakdown of this pride affects Valjean later in the book. He used his pride to prop up his hatred while he was in prison. He was right in thinking that society wronged him and that punishment was excessive, but I think in Hugo’s view he let that make him hateful and prideful rather than humble? His pride then breaks down here, but the combination of his terrible self esteem and his dramatic nature means that he doesn’t just humble himself to the level of others, a normal, healthy level. He humbles himself almost to the level of self-loathing. His pride inverts, so instead of blaming the world for his problems and his anger, he feels the need to shoulder everyone else’s problems (while staunchly ignoring his own). It’s not very healthy, especially because a lot of times he seems to do it to kind of avoid thinking about or feeling about his own anxieties or negative thoughts.

I’m wondering why Hugo says that Valjean breaks down at a “place where three paths met,” and then a few paragraphs later tells us “there was no longer a middle course for him.” We know what those two courses are, but I don’t think Hugo would have done the “three paths” thing if it didn’t mean something. What’s that third path?

“...that, if he wanted to become good, he must become an angel; that, if he wanted to remain evil, he must remain a monster?” My notes from February just say ‘like recidivism to the extreme.’ I’m not sure where I was going with it then, but it does make me marvel at the fact that Valjean was able to do all that he did without a support system, with his own sheer willpower and determination and faith.

“Certainly misfortune, as we have said, educates the intelligence...” Hugo imbuing Valjean with magical visionary powers due to misery, I guess. This goes back to the discussion of Valjean at Toulon, and how he had a “primitive spark” and something unique in him that allows his soul to be rekindled into goodness while others may not have that divine element.

“The future life, the possible life offered to him, all pure and radiant, filled him with trembling and anxiety.” It’s almost as if Valjean never actually leaves this emotional state, even when he becomes good. It’s like he’s constantly terrified of falling back into hateful or bad behavior, but at the same time the idea of being pure and good without mentally flagellating himself is also terrifying. The difference between Valjean and Myriel is that while Myriel dismisses his good deeds and things either as duty or as god’s will etc, Valjean beats himself up for things he does not being good enough or not sacrificing enough.

“...the fact is that in stealing this money from the child, he had done a thing of which he was no longer capable.” What an interesting phrase. How can Valjean do something he’s no longer capable of as he is doing it? Instinct/habit vs conscience, which again is something I think Valjean battles a lot throughout the book.

The image of Valjean as a sort of empty vessel with his past self standing before him is such a cool visual.

This parallel between Jean Valjean’s self and past vanishing when he was put in prison and given the number 24601, vs Valjean’s past self as a prisoner vanishing as he allows the image of the bishop to take over is interesting. “All his past life was erased, even his name. He was no longer Jean Valjean; he was number 24,601.” and then, “By one of those singular effects peculiar to this kind of ecstasy, as his reverie continued, the bishop grew larger and more resplendent to his eyes; Jean Valjean shrank and faded away. For one instant he was no more than a shadow. Then he disappeared. The bishop alone remained.” In the first instance, it is society erasing Valjean the person. In the second, it is religion and conscience erasing convict-Valjean the amoral, or convict-Valjean the evil.

“It seemed to him that he was looking at Satan by the light of Paradise.” Damn, Valjean, way to beat yourself all the way down. Again, I think he never really learns to see himself as anything other than this wretch that he sees here, this miserable and monstrous convict with villainous instincts and so much hatred and anger and hurt. He spends so much time believing this and fighting it, he’s never able to look at himself from outside of himself again like this, and see the good person he’s truly become.

Also, I want to point out that earlier in the chapter Hugo says that Valjean was probably about 10 miles from Digne. This means he walked all the way back to kneel at the doorway of Myriel’s house. I wish I knew more about religion; I feel like the kneeling is maybe significant? I mean, during the Picpus digression there’s all that stuff about prostration in front of the cross, but I feel like this is significant as well. Alas, I don’t know much about religious acts or acts of prayer and I’m not sure how to look something like this thought up, either.

ETA: I had more thoughts about this chapter and wrote a whole second post.

[fremedon]

Brickclub I.2.13, “Petit Gervais”

There’s just so much going on in this chapter, and I know I can’t grapple with all of it. But one thing that’s really leaping out is the tricks this section is playing with time and agency--this line especially:

“One thing was certain, though he did not suspect it, that he was no longer the same man, that all was changed in him, that it was no longer in his power to prevent the bishop from having talked to him and having touched him.”

Like. That should go without saying, shouldn’t it? Why does Hugo need to spell out that Valjean can’t literally change the past? Partly, I suspect, because Valjean is within the next page going to start trying to change the past, by annihilating his old self. He’s going to learn during the Champmathieu affair that that’s not possible, but Hugo’s acknowledging that right away--he can’t change who he was before he met the bishop, any more than he can change their encounter.

And he does try--and, for now, apparently succeed--to completely destroy his old self. He sees himself from outside:

...he saw himself as he was, and was already so far separated from himself that he felt he was no more than a phantom and that he had there before him, in flesh and bone, stick in hand, a shirt on his back, a knapsack filled with stolen articles on his shoulders, with his set and gloomy face and his thoughts full of abominable projects, the hideous convict Jean Valjean.

Excessive misfortune, as we have noted, had made him somehow a visionary. This then was like a vision. He truly saw this Jean Valjean, this ominous face, in front of him. He was on the point of asking himself who the man was, and he was horrified at the idea of asking himself such a question.

Who is he? Voilá, Jean.

And in this same reverie, he sees the bishop: “...as his reverie continued, the bishop grew larger and more resplendent to his eyes; Jean Valjean shrank and faded away. For one instant he was no more than a shadow. Suddenly he disappeared. The bishop alone remained. He filled the whole soul of this miserable man with a magnificent radiance.”

This is flatly terrifying, in ways I need to remember to come back and dig into when we get to “Javert Derailed.” The self-description in his reverie described the articles in his knapsack as stolen, which isn’t true if the silver was a gift. But if the silver is the coin with which Valjean’s soul was purchased, I don’t think the transaction is completed until this moment--until he attempts to completely root out his soul, hand it over, and leave a void for the bishop’s grace to fill. (Huh. In which case the knapsack of stolen goods could just as easily be his body, filled with a soul that he no longer has a claim to, recalling the empty silver basket the last chapter used to ask the question, Where is Jean Valjean’s soul.)

Going back to the first quote: Valjean may not be able to literally change the past, but in giving Valjean a way out of vengeance, hatred, a transactional view of morality, the bishop has given him a way to escape it--to create a future that’s not solely the sum of past injustices.

But beyond that--the bishop does change the past, in exacting a retroactive promise from Valjean: “Do not forget, ever, that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.”

Brianna Lewis at the Les Miserables Reading Companion podcast spent a long time digging into another sentence from this chapter:

“It was a strange phenomenon, possible only in his current condition, but the fact is that in stealing this money from the child, he had done a thing of which he was no longer capable.”

Throughout the book, at moments of moral crisis Valjean and other characters will continue to be out of synch with their own consciences, doing things of which they are no longer, or are not yet, capable. Being out of temporal sync--and being aware of it, and accepting it--is power, in this book: power over one’s own soul, and others’, and power over the moment of one’s death. Characters who acknowledge that they are dead or as good as become bulletproof until that death arrives.

Valjean, of course, racks up another symbolic death and rebirth almost every chapter--he’ll kill his old self by fire on his arrival in M-s-M, water on the Orion, and earth at the convent, and that’s not even all the major ones--but this is his first rebirth, and he doesn’t understand the scope or the limitations of his power yet. He thinks he can destroy himself completely; he thinks he needs to, not understanding the ways in which his own internal moral development was driving him here, not understanding how much trying to efface his sense of injustice and memory of his old hurts is going to lead him astray in the future.

Stray observations:

--The empty plain recalls the plain in Madeleine’s dream, and the curé on horseback recalls the rider, but instead of being lightless and dust-colored, it’s filled with vivid details of light and shadow. It’s a terrifying landscape and a wonderful piece of writing.

--Seized by the collar alert: Petit Gervais takes Valjean by the collar, just as the gendarmes did in the last chapter. Conscience taking over from law.

--The image of the owl dazzled by the sun evokes the toad watching the eagle in Almost Historic.

-- “Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He shed hot tears, he wept bitterly, more powerless than a woman, more terrified than a child.” Now that I’m looking for callbacks to the epigram I’m noticing just how often the woes of men (even when implied / the subject, as here), women, and children are set in parallel like this.

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[the-wraxall-illustrations]

[dolphin1812]

Valjean’s emotional state remains very turbulent throughout this chapter, but I’m curious about how it differs from what we’ve read before. For one, I think he finally gets some catharsis when he cries: nineteen years with no way to express his emotions besides taking them out on others or on himself have clearly taken their toll, but hopefully this allows him to heal at least a bit. He also begins to resemble himself as he was early on in his prison sentence. Although he finds it “intolerable,” he thinks of his home, which he hasn’t been able to do for years (”Although the season was tolerably far advanced, there were still a few late flowers [ . . . ] whose odor [ . . . ] recalled to him memories of his childhood”). He also examines himself at the end of the chapter in a similar manner to how he analyzed himself when he was in prison. While seeing the extent to which this causes him to feel guilt in both cases is heart-wrenching, Hugo seems very interested in the divide between the “beast” in Valjean that acts on the instincts engrained in him by prison and the more peaceful, “thoughtful” side of him; consequently, Valjean reflecting on his actions and thinking of unlearning those “instincts” is probably meant to be a good sign.

The way he tries to turn himself in is also notable. We’ve seen Valjean’s guilt make him present himself as criminal multiple times now, most significantly when he tries to intimidate the bishop before going to sleep. He also commits crimes without fully knowing what he’s doing, possibly because he feels like he deserves to be punished. When he steals from Petit Gervais, he’s following this pattern. However, what’s interesting here is that he tries to atone for his crime before he goes to the solution of prison. When he can’t find the boy on his own, he asks for help, and he likely offers money to the priest in the hopes that it’ll reach Petit Gervais somehow if he’s from the area (and if not, it’ll hopefully help others in need). The way he tells the priest to have him arrested remains an expression of guilt, but this time, it’s after something he’s actually done rather than a pre-emptive sort of condemnation. I still think his guilt is harmful to him overall, but I do think this instance of it is distinct.

It’s also fascinating how we end this chapter with a moment of peaceful contemplation: Valjean in prayer outside of Myriel’s home (I feel like we can assume this is him, every mysterious man in this book is Valjean). All of the descriptions of his thoughts thus far have been chaotic, as have his outward expressions of them (screaming, crying, collapsing, etc). That he is now composed suggests that he has made up his mind in some way. I think it’d be a stretch to say he’s “gotten over” his turmoil, but he’s at the very least in the process of resolving some of it, with the bishop giving him the purpose and direction he lacked before.

[meta-squash]

Retro Bricking 1.2.13 “Petite Gervais” - On that third path

I was skimming Javert Derailed just now and suddenly had a potential epiphany, so I wanted to come back to this chapter real quick.

I was a little bit confused in this chapter because Hugo says “Finally, at a place where three paths met, he stopped.” This is the point where Valjean is overcome by the weight of everything, the moment his conscious change starts. But, a few paragraphs later, Hugo writes:

“Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just past through the decisive hour of his destiny, that there was no longer a middle course for him, that if, thereafter, he were not the best of men, he would be the worst...”

So I wondered, why would he mention Valjean collapsing near three paths when he then realizes there were only two? Surely a place where three paths meet had to have a meaning? What was the third path?

Contrast this moment of Valjean’s inner conflict with Javert’s in 5.4.1, where Hugo writes

“Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two, and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory. One of these two straight lines excluded the other. Which one of the two was the true one?”

Javert’s dilemma is so similar to Valjean’s here. If he turns Valjean over to the police, he knows he’ll be worse than anyone else he might consider immoral or evil, because he sees Valjean suddenly as an honest man. He would become “the worst,” as Valjean’s conflict called it. But to become “the best” would mean to completely change his worldview, to overhaul everything he has ever believed or known and potentially regret past actions and admit wrong. Both paths seem too painful, too offensive, too difficult; they both feel impossible to him.

Javert doesn’t choose either path. His third path is death.

I think that’s what the unavailable third path is when Valjean first collapses in 1.2.13. Death is there as an option that exists conceptually, but it’s not actually an option for Valjean. He’s not in quite the same ethical dire straits as Javert; he is still very malleable at this point in the story, and both choices seem very possible to him, it’s just a matter of which one. So while death could potentially be an option, it’s not one that Valjean thinks of, because that’s the option you choose when both other paths feel impossible.

[dolphin1812]

Watching Jean Valjean steal from Petit Gervais is so upsetting, but this description is so funny:

“The bushes shook their thin little arms with incredible fury. One would have said that they were threatening and pursuing some one.”

Wow, Hugo, I wonder who the bushes could be pursuing. We definitely don’t have a character feeling guilty and like he deserves to be caught for his crimes here.

And “their thin little arms” is such a funny detail, I alternate between imagining actual bushes with twigs and bushes with stick-figure arms waving their fists in the air?