Les Misérables. Виктор Мари Гюго

garden. He approached the hut; its door consisted of a very low and narrow aperture, and it resembled those buildings which road-laborers construct for themselves along the roads. He thought without doubt, that it was, in fact, the dwelling of a road-laborer; he was suffering from cold and hunger, but this was, at least, a shelter from the cold. This sort of dwelling is not usually occupied at night. He threw himself flat on his face, and crawled into the hut. It was warm there, and he found a tolerably good bed of straw. He lay, for a moment, stretched out on this bed, without the power to make a movement, so fatigued was he. Then, as the knapsack on his back was in his way, and as it furnished, moreover, a pillow ready to his hand, he set about unbuckling one of the straps. At that moment, a ferocious growl became audible. He raised his eyes. The head of an enormous dog was outlined in the darkness at the entrance of the hut.

      It was a dog’s kennel.

      He was himself vigorous and formidable; he armed himself with his staff, made a shield of his knapsack, and made his way out of the kennel in the best way he could, not without enlarging the rents in his rags.

      He left the garden in the same manner, but backwards, being obliged, in order to keep the dog respectful, to have recourse to that manœuvre with his stick which masters in that sort of fencing designate as la rose couverte.

      When he had, not without difficulty, repassed the fence, and found himself once more in the street, alone, without refuge, without shelter, without a roof over his head, chased even from that bed of straw and from that miserable kennel, he dropped rather than seated himself on a stone, and it appears that a passer-by heard him exclaim, “I am not even a dog!”

      He soon rose again and resumed his march. He went out of the town, hoping to find some tree or haystack in the fields which would afford him shelter.

      He walked thus for some time, with his head still drooping. When he felt himself far from every human habitation, he raised his eyes and gazed searchingly about him. He was in a field. Before him was one of those low hills covered with close-cut stubble, which, after the harvest, resemble shaved heads.

      The horizon was perfectly black. This was not alone the obscurity of night; it was caused by very low-hanging clouds which seemed to rest upon the hill itself, and which were mounting and filling the whole sky. Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was still floating in the zenith a remnant of the brightness of twilight, these clouds formed at the summit of the sky a sort of whitish arch, whence a gleam of light fell upon the earth.

      The earth was thus better lighted than the sky, which produces a particularly sinister effect, and the hill, whose contour was poor and mean, was outlined vague and wan against the gloomy horizon. The whole effect was hideous, petty, lugubrious, and narrow.

      There was nothing in the field or on the hill except a deformed tree, which writhed and shivered a few paces distant from the wayfarer.

      This man was evidently very far from having those delicate habits of intelligence and spirit which render one sensible to the mysterious aspects of things; nevertheless, there was something in that sky, in that hill, in that plain, in that tree, which was so profoundly desolate, that after a moment of immobility and reverie he turned back abruptly. There are instants when nature seems hostile.

      He retraced his steps; the gates of D—— were closed. D——, which had sustained sieges during the wars of religion, was still surrounded in 1815 by ancient walls flanked by square towers which have been demolished since. He passed through a breach and entered the town again.

      It might have been eight o’clock in the evening. As he was not acquainted with the streets, he recommenced his walk at random.

      In this way he came to the prefecture, then to the seminary. As he passed through the Cathedral Square, he shook his fist at the church.

      At the corner of this square there is a printing establishment. It is there that the proclamations of the Emperor and of the Imperial Guard to the army, brought from the Island of Elba and dictated by Napoleon himself, were printed for the first time.

      Worn out with fatigue, and no longer entertaining any hope, he lay down on a stone bench which stands at the doorway of this printing office.

      At that moment an old woman came out of the church. She saw the man stretched out in the shadow. “What are you doing there, my friend?” said she.

      He answered harshly and angrily: “As you see, my good woman, I am sleeping.” The good woman, who was well worthy the name, in fact, was the Marquise de R——

      “On this bench?” she went on.

      “I have had a mattress of wood for nineteen years,” said the man; “to-day I have a mattress of stone.”

      “You have been a soldier?”

      “Yes, my good woman, a soldier.”

      “Why do you not go to the inn?”

      “Because I have no money.”

      “Alas!” said Madame de R——, “I have only four sous in my purse.”

      “Give it to me all the same.”

      The man took the four sous. Madame de R—— continued: “You cannot obtain lodgings in an inn for so small a sum. But have you tried? It is impossible for you to pass the night thus. You are cold and hungry, no doubt. Some one might have given you a lodging out of charity.”

      “I have knocked at all doors.”

      “Well?”

      “I have been driven away everywhere.”

      The “good woman” touched the man’s arm, and pointed out to him on the other side of the street a small, low house, which stood beside the Bishop’s palace.

      “You have knocked at all doors?”

      “Yes.”

      “Have you knocked at that one?”

      “No.”

      “Knock there.”

       CHAPTER II—PRUDENCE COUNSELLED TO WISDOM.

       Table of Contents

      That evening, the Bishop of D——, after his promenade through the town, remained shut up rather late in his room. He was busy over a great work on Duties, which was never completed, unfortunately. He was carefully compiling everything that the Fathers and the doctors have said on this important subject. His book was divided into two parts: firstly, the duties of all; secondly, the duties of each individual, according to the class to which he belongs. The duties of all are the great duties. There are four of these. Saint Matthew points them out: duties towards God (Matt. vi.); duties towards one’s self (Matt. v. 29, 30); duties towards one’s neighbor (Matt. vii. 12); duties towards animals (Matt. vi. 20, 25). As for the other duties the Bishop found them pointed out and prescribed elsewhere: to sovereigns and subjects, in the Epistle to the Romans; to magistrates, to wives, to mothers, to young men, by Saint Peter; to husbands, fathers, children and servants, in the Epistle to the Ephesians; to the faithful, in the Epistle to the Hebrews; to virgins, in the Epistle to the Corinthians. Out of these precepts he was laboriously constructing a harmonious whole, which he desired to present to souls.

      At eight o’clock he was still at work, writing with a good deal of inconvenience upon little squares of paper, with a big book open on his knees, when Madame Magloire entered, according to her wont, to get the silver-ware from the cupboard near his bed. A moment later, the Bishop, knowing that the table was set, and that his sister was probably waiting for him, shut his book, rose from his table, and entered the dining-room.

      The dining-room was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace, which had a door opening on the street (as we have said), and a window opening on the garden.

      Madame Magloire was, in fact, just putting the last touches to the table.