#lm 1.2.13

[nortism]

So devasting to me that Gavroche and Petit Gervais were separated by both time and space, they should have been besties

[bewareofitalics]

Victor Hugo:

[Jean Valjean] tomba épuisé sur une grosse pierre, les poings dans ses cheveux et le visage dans ses genoux, et il cria : Je suis un misérable !

Julie Rose:

[Jean Valjean] dropped, exhausted, onto a big slab of rock, his hands balled into fists and buried in his hair, his head propped on his knees, and he cried: “I am a miserable bastard!”

Me:

[secretmellowblog]

Pictures taken seconds before a convict robs you of your forty-sous piece:

[cliozaur]

Petit Gervais

[piierogis]

Fresh from @lesmisletters: Petit Gervais, his canon (!!) marmot and his entire pokemon party, as told by various translators

French: ...sa vielle au flanc et sa boîte à marmotte sur le dos...

Hapgood: ... his marmot-box on his back.

Several other translators, for some godforsaken reason: he's carrying a... cherrywood box! a guinea pig in a cage! a dormouse box! a... cricket!

[lesbianvaljean]

this is definitely a digression, but in addition to everything else, 1.2.13 seems very much like a tale of two priests: Bishop Myriel and the nameless priest on a horse.

Priest-on-a-horse is not an actively malicious guy! He just sort of doesn't care. He says, offhand, about Petit-Gervais: "He is a little stranger. Such persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them." And when a hysterical Valjean says something that alarms him, he races off. He wants to "know nothing" of strangers passing through; he is unwilling to risk his own comfort or safety to help.

This seems like a pretty deliberate nod to the Bad Priest of the parable of the Good Samaritan, who "happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man [in need], he passed by on the other side." Not a man he knew; unpredictable and distressed; ignorable. (Hugo is really not subtle on this point; see also Jesus, saying "Depart from me, you who are cursed, [because] I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.")

Myriel is only present in Valjean's memory. But the memory of Myriel's care and mercy toward him, a stranger, a criminal, is so transformative for Valjean that Myriel is raised into the place of Christ in his mind. Parts of this chapter read like the very best of conversion literature — Saul blinded, Augustine turning — with the Bishop quite literally acting in persona christi.

"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."

compare Colossians 3:3: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."

just an extremely neat contrast here, the nameless erasure of the priest who knew nothing of the stranger, the hagiographic elevation of the priest who, despite all his faults, welcomed and fed and forgave Jean Valjean.

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 2, Matchup 17: I.ii.13 vs III.i.13

[zqnl]

Les Misérables Vol 1, Book 2, Chapter 13: Petit-Gervais

Man I loved this chapter and how it depicted Valjean’s internal turmoil and morality struggle. Particularly, how his guilt and self-directed anger warp his self-perception.

Broke down my thoughts & analysis (under the cut) into four rough sections:

Valjean, post-Myriel

The incident with the 40 sous

Valjean’s (warped) conclusion re: his own morality

The demonisation of the name Jean Valjean

As always, keen to see other interpretations/things I’ve missed 👀👀

Valjean, post-Myriel

We start with Valjean’s initial reaction to Myriel’s clemency:

“He had the indistinct feeling that this priest’s forgiveness was the greatest assault and most tremendous attack he had ever experienced. That if he resisted this clemency the hardening of his heart would be definitive. That if he yielded he would be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the deeds of other men had filled his soul over so many years, a hatred he relished.”

I really enjoyed the violence of this description, and how it illustrates the burden of choice. Before, when all Valjean could do was doubt and steal, he was just an ex-convict, almost devoid of agency because of how drastically prison had altered his worldview. Now, if he continues to doubt and steal after not only being shown great kindness but also being given the means to rise above his station, he would be a worse man than he was before.

But naturally, the effects of nineteen years of prison and a lifetime of poverty before that can’t really be brushed away with one gift of kindness, no matter how awe-inspiring that gift might have been. Not to mention, when someone is truly a better person than you are, being on the receiving end of their kindness can be pretty unpleasant! Oftentimes it throws your imperfections in harsh relief; forgiveness especially evokes guilt and asks for change when you’re still in the throes of anger. Thus: “As too bright a light would have hurt his eyes on emerging from the dark, so the bishop hurt his soul when he came out of that perverse place of darkness called penal servitude.”

(Side note: the bishop is light for obvious moral reasons, but on top of that, the object that triggered Valjean’s illumination were the candlesticks the bishop gave him. So really, Myriel brought both metaphorical and literal light to Jean Valjean. Very cool!)

The incident with the 40 sous

The struggle of moral reform is shown when Valjean does indeed hold onto his old ways for a little longer when robbing Petit-Gervais. This time, however, he’s internalised enough of Myriel’s message that it becomes a real, concrete turning point in his outward actions.

(Another side note: a rudimentary google search told me that Gervais can mean spear, i.e. even the boy’s name points to the incident with the forty sous that finally pierces through Valjean’s hatred, anger, and confusion.)

Valjean’s (warped) conclusion re: his own morality

We can refer to let the scene where Valjean has an out-of-body vision featuring the bishop Myriel and the dangerous ex-convict Jean Valjean for the conclusion Valjean settles on.

During this scene, Hugo depicts Valjean’s consciousness as separate to the two forces he envisions, thus showing us how Valjean is completely lost. He cannot identify with either extreme within him, but he doesn’t know where he falls between them either. To him, his own morality has become an all-or-nothing situation. He compares his vision of his prior self next to the bishop as “Satan by the light of Paradise”, and subsequently sees the bishop’s light vanquish ‘Jean Valjean’.

Ironically, has subconsciously warped Myriel’s previous words to him despite propping him up as a paragon of goodness, or his own personal ideal. Where Myriel had told him that holding onto anger after his experiences was a state to be pitied (not condemned), Valjean now views his previous self with all his (justifiably) negative emotions as monstrous.

It’s a significantly more ✨catholic guilt✨ approach than what Myriel was going for. We see it even in the chapter title, Petit-Gervais. Even though the interaction with Petit-Gervais is brief and the focus of the chapter shifts to Valjean’s repentance after the act, the title still lingers on the boy’s name. It could indicate that to Valjean, his mistreatment of Petit-Gervais (and subsequent guilt) overshadows his change of heart afterwards.

The demonisation of the name Jean Valjean

This self-hatred and warped self-perception is also exemplified in the use of Jean Valjean’s name as a borderline seperate entity to the man himself. I started paying more attention to mentions of his name after reading this post, and there are a couple places in this chapter where we see it becoming the manifestation of his crimes and sins:

“… he felt that he was no more than a ghost. And that standing there before him… was the ghastly convicted felon Jean Valjean.”

“He actually saw this Jean Valjean, this sinister face, before him. He was almost starting to wonder who the man was, and was horrified by him”

“… the bishop grew in stature and brilliance while Jean Valjean shrank and faded. There came a point when he was no more than a shadow. All of a sudden he vanished.”

The man is having an identity crisis! He’s externalising (and almost dissociating from) his crimes and sins, and is now doing what other people will do for the rest of the book — associating his name with every bad action he’s performed, and all the negative connotations associated with the myth of the ex-convict Jean Valjean.

[lawisnotmocked]

I was planning on just writing one post about all the notable animal imagery in volume 1 book 2 for les mis letters but it ended up being way too long so I’ve decided to split it up into two separate posts :p Canine imagery has it’s own post and this one is about feline imagery! (With a little bit of bird imagery at the end too 👀)

Book 2 features the first example of cat imagery in Les Mis! Cats have a lot of different Symbolic Associations in Les Mis, including representing Society and the ordinary people of Paris, but many of these associations don’t show up properly until book 3 so for now I’ll be focusing on their Other Symbolic Purpose - representing indecision, choices to make and potential (including the potential to become a different Symbolically Relevant Big Cat).

In 1.2.11 when Valjean sneaks into Myriel’s room, the way he opens the door is described as catlike and uncertain.

Jean Valjean listened. Not a sound. He gave the door a push. He pushed it gently with the tip of his finger, lightly, with the furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering.

When Valjean enters the bishop’s room he still seems unsure about what he plans on doing. The decision he makes next will change the trajectory of his entire life and, in Hugo’s own (translated) words, ‘one would have said that he was hesitating between the two abysses,—the one in which one loses one’s self and that in which one saves one’s self’.

When Valjean does make the decision to steal the silverware and run off with it his feline imagery switches from cat to tiger.

[He] opened the window, seized his cudgel, bestrode the window-sill of the ground floor, put the silver into his knapsack, threw away the basket, crossed the garden, leaped over the wall like a tiger, and fled.

If cats symbolically represent a Regular Person making a Decision in Les Mis, the lion and tiger are like a big cat angel and devil on their shoulders. I’m fairly sure tigers being associated with Malicious, Dangerous And Evil Intentions was an established literary trope during this period? I don’t have any of my other examples on hand right now but I’m reading A Tale of Two Cities at the moment and Dickens uses tiger imagery for the marquis in a very similar way -

Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:—looked like some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, or just coming on.

Hugo sympathises a lot with Valjean’s decisions in book 2 so I don’t think he’s trying to argue that Valjean is Evil And Malicious in this moment, but stealing the silverware would’ve absolutely had terrible consequences for him if Myriel hadn’t intervened and I think the tiger imagery is a part of it being portrayed as a bad and impulsive decision from that angle. I think this also represents a shift in Valjean’s mental state from a cautious and quiet domestic cat to a dangerous and impulsive wild animal, just like the wolf imagery Hugo uses for Valjean in 1.2.7. Anyway, cat and tiger imagery will definitely show up again in future chapters! Yippee!

Finally, we also get some owl imagery for Valjean during his moral crisis in 1.2.13 when he‘s thinking about the implications of what Myriel has done for him by gifting him the silver.

He no longer knew where he really was. Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

I don’t have much to say about this one other than a very surface level appreciation for the mental image this description gives the reader, but I wanted to take note of it because I’m pretty sure Valjean gets more owl imagery later on in the book and I’d like to be able to come back and compare it to this one 👀

There’s also been a couple of other mentions of birds that I’ve been taking note of but I don’t think I have anything to say about them yet either. Watch this space I guess lol 🦉

[mariuspompom]

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.

[lesmisletters-daily]

Little Gervais

Les Mis Letters reading club explores one chapter of Les Misérables every day. Join us on Discord, Substack - or share your thoughts right here on tumblr - today's tag is #lm 1.2.13

Jean Valjean left the town as though he were fleeing from it. He set out at a very hasty pace through the fields, taking whatever roads and paths presented themselves to him, without perceiving that he was incessantly retracing his steps. He wandered thus the whole morning, without having eaten anything and without feeling hungry. He was the prey of a throng of novel sensations. He was conscious of a sort of rage; he did not know against whom it was directed. He could not have told whether he was touched or humiliated. There came over him at moments a strange emotion which he resisted and to which he opposed the hardness acquired during the last twenty years of his life. This state of mind fatigued him. He perceived with dismay that the sort of frightful calm which the injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him was giving way within him. He asked himself what would replace this. 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. Although the season was tolerably far advanced, there were still a few late flowers in the hedge-rows here and there, whose odor as he passed through them in his march recalled to him memories of his childhood. These memories were almost intolerable to him, it was so long since they had recurred to him.

Unutterable thoughts assembled within him in this manner all day long.

As the sun declined to its setting, casting long shadows athwart the soil from every pebble, Jean Valjean sat down behind a bush upon a large ruddy plain, which was absolutely deserted. There was nothing on the horizon except the Alps. Not even the spire of a distant village. Jean Valjean might have been three leagues distant from D—— A path which intersected the plain passed a few paces from the bush.

In the middle of this meditation, which would have contributed not a little to render his rags terrifying to any one who might have encountered him, a joyous sound became audible.

He turned his head and saw a little Savoyard, about ten years of age, coming up the path and singing, his hurdy-gurdy on his hip, and his marmot-box on his back.

One of those gay and gentle children, who go from land to land affording a view of their knees through the holes in their trousers.

Without stopping his song, the lad halted in his march from time to time, and played at knuckle-bones with some coins which he had in his hand—his whole fortune, probably.

Among this money there was one forty-sou piece.

The child halted beside the bush, without perceiving Jean Valjean, and tossed up his handful of sous, which, up to that time, he had caught with a good deal of adroitness on the back of his hand.

This time the forty-sou piece escaped him, and went rolling towards the brushwood until it reached Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean set his foot upon it.

In the meantime, the child had looked after his coin and had caught sight of him.

He showed no astonishment, but walked straight up to the man.

The spot was absolutely solitary. As far as the eye could see there was not a person on the plain or on the path. The only sound was the tiny, feeble cries of a flock of birds of passage, which was traversing the heavens at an immense height. The child was standing with his back to the sun, which cast threads of gold in his hair and empurpled with its blood-red gleam the savage face of Jean Valjean.

“Sir,” said the little Savoyard, with that childish confidence which is composed of ignorance and innocence, “my money.”

“What is your name?” said Jean Valjean.

“Little Gervais, sir.”

“Go away,” said Jean Valjean.

“Sir,” resumed the child, “give me back my money.”

Jean Valjean dropped his head, and made no reply.

The child began again, “My money, sir.”

Jean Valjean’s eyes remained fixed on the earth.

“My piece of money!” cried the child, “my white piece! my silver!”

It seemed as though Jean Valjean did not hear him. The child grasped him by the collar of his blouse and shook him. At the same time he made an effort to displace the big iron-shod shoe which rested on his treasure.

“I want my piece of money! my piece of forty sous!”

The child wept. Jean Valjean raised his head. He still remained seated. His eyes were troubled. He gazed at the child, in a sort of amazement, then he stretched out his hand towards his cudgel and cried in a terrible voice, “Who’s there?”

“I, sir,” replied the child. “Little Gervais! I! Give me back my forty sous, if you please! Take your foot away, sir, if you please!”

Then irritated, though he was so small, and becoming almost menacing:—

“Come now, will you take your foot away? Take your foot away, or we’ll see!”

“Ah! It’s still you!” said Jean Valjean, and rising abruptly to his feet, his foot still resting on the silver piece, he added:—

“Will you take yourself off!”

The frightened child looked at him, then began to tremble from head to foot, and after a few moments of stupor he set out, running at the top of his speed, without daring to turn his neck or to utter a cry.

Nevertheless, lack of breath forced him to halt after a certain distance, and Jean Valjean heard him sobbing, in the midst of his own reverie.

At the end of a few moments the child had disappeared.

The sun had set.

The shadows were descending around Jean Valjean. He had eaten nothing all day; it is probable that he was feverish.

He had remained standing and had not changed his attitude after the child’s flight. The breath heaved his chest at long and irregular intervals. His gaze, fixed ten or twelve paces in front of him, seemed to be scrutinizing with profound attention the shape of an ancient fragment of blue earthenware which had fallen in the grass. All at once he shivered; he had just begun to feel the chill of evening.

He settled his cap more firmly on his brow, sought mechanically to cross and button his blouse, advanced a step and stopped to pick up his cudgel.

At that moment he caught sight of the forty-sou piece, which his foot had half ground into the earth, and which was shining among the pebbles. It was as though he had received a galvanic shock. “What is this?” he muttered between his teeth. He recoiled three paces, then halted, without being able to detach his gaze from the spot which his foot had trodden but an instant before, as though the thing which lay glittering there in the gloom had been an open eye riveted upon him.

At the expiration of a few moments he darted convulsively towards the silver coin, seized it, and straightened himself up again and began to gaze afar off over the plain, at the same time casting his eyes towards all points of the horizon, as he stood there erect and shivering, like a terrified wild animal which is seeking refuge.

He saw nothing. Night was falling, the plain was cold and vague, great banks of violet haze were rising in the gleam of the twilight.

He said, “Ah!” and set out rapidly in the direction in which the child had disappeared. After about thirty paces he paused, looked about him and saw nothing.

Then he shouted with all his might:—

“Little Gervais! Little Gervais!”

He paused and waited.

There was no reply.

The landscape was gloomy and deserted. He was encompassed by space. There was nothing around him but an obscurity in which his gaze was lost, and a silence which engulfed his voice.

An icy north wind was blowing, and imparted to things around him a sort of lugubrious life. The bushes shook their thin little arms with incredible fury. One would have said that they were threatening and pursuing some one.

He set out on his march again, then he began to run; and from time to time he halted and shouted into that solitude, with a voice which was the most formidable and the most disconsolate that it was possible to hear, “Little Gervais! Little Gervais!”

Assuredly, if the child had heard him, he would have been alarmed and would have taken good care not to show himself. But the child was no doubt already far away.

He encountered a priest on horseback. He stepped up to him and said:—

“Monsieur le Curé, have you seen a child pass?”

“No,” said the priest.

“One named Little Gervais?”

“I have seen no one.”

He drew two five-franc pieces from his money-bag and handed them to the priest.

“Monsieur le Curé, this is for your poor people. Monsieur le Curé, he was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and a hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?”

“I have not seen him.”

“Little Gervais? There are no villages here? Can you tell me?”

“If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them.”

Jean Valjean seized two more coins of five francs each with violence, and gave them to the priest.

“For your poor,” he said.

Then he added, wildly:—

“Monsieur l’Abbé, have me arrested. I am a thief.”

The priest put spurs to his horse and fled in haste, much alarmed.

Jean Valjean set out on a run, in the direction which he had first taken.

In this way he traversed a tolerably long distance, gazing, calling, shouting, but he met no one. Two or three times he ran across the plain towards something which conveyed to him the effect of a human being reclining or crouching down; it turned out to be nothing but brushwood or rocks nearly on a level with the earth. At length, at a spot where three paths intersected each other, he stopped. The moon had risen. He sent his gaze into the distance and shouted for the last time, “Little Gervais! Little Gervais! Little Gervais!” His shout died away in the mist, without even awakening an echo. He murmured yet once more, “Little Gervais!” but in a feeble and almost inarticulate voice. It was his last effort; his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an invisible power had suddenly overwhelmed him with the weight of his evil conscience; he fell exhausted, on a large stone, his fists clenched in his hair and his face on his knees, and he cried, “I am a wretch!”

Then his heart burst, and he began to cry. It was the first time that he had wept in nineteen years.

When Jean Valjean left the Bishop’s house, he was, as we have seen, quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto. 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. “You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your soul. I take it away from the spirit of perversity; I give it to the good God.”

This recurred to his mind unceasingly. To this celestial kindness he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us. He was indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest assault and the most formidable attack which had moved him yet; that his obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency; that if he yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man.

In the presence of these lights, he proceeded like a man who is intoxicated. As he walked thus with haggard eyes, did he have a distinct perception of what might result to him from his adventure at D——? 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?

Here, again, some questions must be put, which we have already put to ourselves elsewhere: 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. On emerging from that black and deformed thing which is called the galleys, the Bishop had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on emerging from the dark. The future life, the possible life which offered itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with tremors and anxiety. He no longer knew where he really was. Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

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.

In this state of mind he had encountered little Gervais, and had robbed him of his forty sous. Why? He certainly could not have explained it; was this the last effect and the supreme effort, as it were, of the evil thoughts which he had brought away from the galleys,—a remnant of impulse, a result of what is called in statics, <i>acquired force?</i> It was that, and it was also, perhaps, even less than that. Let us say it simply, it was not he who stole; it was not the man; it was the beast, who, by habit and instinct, had simply placed his foot upon that money, while the intelligence was struggling amid so many novel and hitherto unheard-of thoughts besetting it.

When intelligence reawakened and beheld that action of the brute, Jean Valjean recoiled with anguish and uttered a cry of terror.

It was because,—strange phenomenon, and one which was possible only in the situation in which he found himself,—in stealing the money from that child, he had done a thing of which he was no longer capable.

However that may be, this last evil action had a decisive effect on him; it abruptly traversed that chaos which he bore in his mind, and dispersed it, placed on one side the thick obscurity, and on the other the light, and acted on his soul, in the state in which it then was, as certain chemical reagents act upon a troubled mixture by precipitating one element and clarifying the other.

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.

His brain was going through one of those violent and yet perfectly calm moments in which reverie is so profound that it absorbs reality. One no longer beholds the object which one has before one, and one sees, as though apart from one’s self, the figures which one has in one’s own mind.

Thus he contemplated himself, so to speak, face to face, and at the same time, athwart this hallucination, he perceived in a mysterious depth a sort of light which he at first took for a torch. On scrutinizing this light which appeared to his conscience with more attention, he recognized the fact that it possessed a human form and that this torch was the Bishop.

His conscience weighed in turn these two men thus placed before it,—the Bishop and Jean Valjean. Nothing less than the first was required to soften the second. 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.

Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He wept burning tears, he sobbed with more weakness than a woman, with more fright than a child.

As he wept, daylight penetrated more and more clearly into his soul; an extraordinary light; a light at once ravishing and terrible. 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 all the more monstrous since it had come after the Bishop’s pardon,—all this recurred to his mind and appeared clearly to him, but with a clearness 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.

How many hours did he weep thus? What did he do after he had wept? Whither did he go! No one ever knew. The only thing which seems to be authenticated is that that same night the carrier who served Grenoble at that epoch, and who arrived at D—— about three o’clock in the morning, saw, as he traversed the street in which the Bishop’s residence was situated, a man in the attitude of prayer, kneeling on the pavement in the shadow, in front of the door of Monseigneur Welcome.

[nortism]

Les Misérables 1.2.13 vs Saul’s Conversion (Acts 9)

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

Acts 9:3 (NIV)

He (Jean Valjean) no longer knew where he really was. Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

Les Misérables 1.2.13 (Hapgood)

He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Acts 9:4 (NIV)

He fell exhausted, on a large stone, his fists clenched in his hair and his face on his knees, and he cried, “I am a wretch!”

Then his heart burst, and he began to cry.

Les Misérables 1.2.13 (Hapgood)

And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptised.

Acts 9:17-18 (NIV)

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.

Les Misérables 1.2.13 (Hapgood)

[pureanonofficial]

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.

[secretmellowblog]

Petit Gervais is described as having a trained marmot in a cage… look at this little marmot. What a perfect animal sidekick. Alas that Valjean robbed Petit Gervais, this was literally who he was being mean to btw:

[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.

[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.