Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the one hundred nineteenth chapter of Les Miserables.
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>> Brie Carlisle: Take a look, in the book and let's see
Speaker:what we can find.
Speaker:Take it chapter by chapter. One
Speaker:fight M at a time
Speaker:so many adventures and
Speaker:mountains we can climb
Speaker:to give word for word, line by
Speaker:line, one bite at a time.
Speaker:>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome to bite at a time books where we read you your
Speaker:favorite classics one byte at a time. my name is
Speaker:Bre Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to
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Speaker:behind the narration of the episodes. We are part
Speaker:of the bite at a Time books productions network. If
Speaker:youd also like to hear what inspired your favorite classic
Speaker:authors to write their novels and what was going
Speaker:on in the world at the time, check out the bite at a
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Speaker:you listen to podcasts, please note,
Speaker:while we try to keep the text as close to the original as
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Speaker:to honor the marginalized communities whove identified the
Speaker:words as harmful and to stay in alignment
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Speaker:today well be continuing.
Speaker:>> Brie Carlisle: Les Miserable by Victor
Speaker:Hugo Book
Speaker:six Le Petit picpus
Speaker:chapter one number 62
Speaker:rue petite picpus
Speaker:nothing half a century ago
Speaker:more resembled every other carriage gate than the carriage
Speaker:gate of number 62 rue Petite picpus.
Speaker:This entrance, which usually stood ajar in the most
Speaker:inviting fashion, permitted a view of two
Speaker:things, neither of which have anything very
Speaker:funereal about them. A courtyard
Speaker:surrounded by walls hung with vines and the face of
Speaker:a lounging porter. Above the wall at the
Speaker:bottom of the court, whole trees were visible
Speaker:when a ray of sunlight enlivened the courtyard.
Speaker:When a glass of wine cheered up the porter, it was difficult to
Speaker:pass no. 62 little pickpocket
Speaker:without carrying away a smiling impression of it.
Speaker:Nevertheless, it was a somber place of which one had had a
Speaker:glimpse. The threshold
Speaker:smiled, the house prayed and
Speaker:wept. If one succeeded in passing the
Speaker:porter, which was not easy, which was even
Speaker:nearly impossible for everyone, for there was an open
Speaker:sesame, which it was necessary to know. If
Speaker:the porter once passed, one entered
Speaker:a little vestibule on the right on which opened a
Speaker:staircase shut in between two walls, and so
Speaker:narrow that only one person could ascend it at a time.
Speaker:If one did not allow oneself to be alarmed by a daubing
Speaker:of canary yellow with a dado of chocolate
Speaker:which clothed this staircase, if one
Speaker:ventured to ascend it, one crossed a first
Speaker:landing, then a second, and arrived on the
Speaker:first story at a corridor where the yellow wash and the
Speaker:chocolate hued plinth pursued one with a
Speaker:peaceable persistency. Staircase
Speaker:and corridor were lighted by two beautiful windows.
Speaker:The corridor took a turn and became dark.
Speaker:If one doubled this cape, one arrived a few paces
Speaker:further on in front of a door, which was all the more mysterious
Speaker:because it was not fastened. If one
Speaker:opened it, one found oneself in a little
Speaker:chamber about 6ft square,
Speaker:tiled while scrubbed clean,
Speaker:cold, and hung with nincken paper with green
Speaker:flowers. At, 15 suits the roll.
Speaker:A white dull light fell from a large window
Speaker:with tiny panes on the left, which
Speaker:usurped the whole width of the room. One
Speaker:gazed about, but saw no one.
Speaker:One listened. One heard neither a
Speaker:footstep nor a human murmur. The walls
Speaker:were bare. The chamber was not
Speaker:furnished. There was not even a chair.
Speaker:One looked again and beheld on the wall facing the door, a
Speaker:quadrangular hole about a foot square, with
Speaker:a grating of interlacing iron bars,
Speaker:black, knotted, solid, which
Speaker:formed squares, I had almost said
Speaker:meshes of less than an inch and a half in diagonal
Speaker:length. The little green flowers of the nankin paper
Speaker:ran in a calm and orderly manner to those iron
Speaker:bars, without being startled or thrown
Speaker:into confusion by their funereal contact.
Speaker:Supposing that a living being had been so wonderfully
Speaker:thin as, to essay an entrance or an exit through the square
Speaker:hole, this grating would have prevented it.
Speaker:It did not allow the passage of the body, but it did allow the
Speaker:passage of the eyes, that is to say, of the
Speaker:mind. This seems to have occurred to
Speaker:them, for it had been reinforced by a sheet of
Speaker:tin inserted in the wall, a little in the
Speaker:rear, and pierced with a thousand holes more
Speaker:microscopic than the holes of a strainer. At the
Speaker:bottom of this plate an aperture had been
Speaker:pierced exactly similar to the orifice of a
Speaker:letterboxdehenous. A bit of tape attached to a
Speaker:bell wire hung at the right of the grated opening.
Speaker:If the tape was pulled, a bell rang,
Speaker:and one heard a voice very near at hand, which made one
Speaker:start. Who is there?
Speaker:The voice demanded. It was a womans
Speaker:voice, a gentle voice,
Speaker:so gentle that it was mournful.
Speaker:Here again there was a magical word which it was necessary to
Speaker:know. If one did not know it. The
Speaker:voice ceased. The wall became silent once
Speaker:more.
Speaker:>> Brie Carlisle: As though the terrified obscurity of the.
Speaker:>> Brie Carlisle: Sepulcher had been on the other side of it. If
Speaker:one knew the password, the voice
Speaker:resumed. Enter on the
Speaker:right. One then perceived on the
Speaker:right, facing the window, a glass door surmounted by a frame
Speaker:glazed and painted gray. On raising the
Speaker:latch and crossing the threshold, one
Speaker:experienced precisely the same impression. As one
Speaker:enters the theater into a graded beignoir. Before
Speaker:the grating is lowered and the chandelier is lighted.
Speaker:One was in fact in a sort of theater
Speaker:box, narrow, furnished with two
Speaker:old chairs and a much frayed straw matting.
Speaker:Sparely illuminated by the vague light from the glass
Speaker:door. A regular box with its front just
Speaker:of a height to lean upon, bearing a tablet of
Speaker:black wooden. This box was
Speaker:grated. Only the grating of it was not of gilded
Speaker:wood as at the opera. It was a monstrous lattice
Speaker:of iron bars. Hideously interlaced and
Speaker:riveted to the wall by enormous fastenings which resembled clenched
Speaker:fists. The first minutes
Speaker:passed when ones eyes began to grow used to
Speaker:this cellar like half twilight. One tried to pass the
Speaker:grating but got no further than six inches beyond
Speaker:it. There he encountered a barrier of black
Speaker:shutters. Reinforced and fortified with
Speaker:transverse beams of wood. Painted a gingerbread
Speaker:yellow. These shutters were
Speaker:divided into long, narrow slats. And they
Speaker:masked the entire length of the grating. They were
Speaker:always closed at the expiration of a few
Speaker:moments. One heard a voice proceeding from behind these shutters and
Speaker:saying, I am here. What do you wish with
Speaker:me? It was a beloved,
Speaker:sometimes an adored voice. No one was
Speaker:visible. Hardly the sound of a breath was
Speaker:audible. It seemed as though it were a
Speaker:spirit which had been evoked that was speaking to you across
Speaker:the walls of the tomb. If one
Speaker:chanced to be within certain prescribed and very rare
Speaker:conditions. The slot of one of the shutters opened
Speaker:opposite you. The, evoked spirit became an
Speaker:apparition. Behind the grating,
Speaker:behind the shutter. One perceived, so far as the grating
Speaker:permitted sight. A head of which only
Speaker:the mouth and the chin were visible. The rest was
Speaker:covered with a black veil. One
Speaker:caught a glimpse of a black gamp and a form that was barely
Speaker:defined, covered with a black shroud.
Speaker:That head spoke with you but did not look at you and never
Speaker:smiled at you. The light which came from
Speaker:behind you was adjusted in such a manner that you saw her in the
Speaker:white, and she saw you in the black.
Speaker:The light was symbolical.
Speaker:Nevertheless, your eyes plunged eagerly through that opening
Speaker:which was made in that place, shut off from all
Speaker:glances. A profound vagueness enveloped
Speaker:that form. Clad in mourning, your
Speaker:eyes searched that vagueness and sought to make out the
Speaker:surroundings of your apparition. At the
Speaker:expiration of a very short time, you discovered that you could see
Speaker:nothing. What you beheld was night,
Speaker:emptiness, shadows. A
Speaker:wintry mist mingled with the vapor from the tomb.
Speaker:A sort of terrible peace, a
Speaker:silence from which you could gather nothing, not
Speaker:even sighs. A gloom in which you could
Speaker:distinguish nothing, not even phantoms.
Speaker:What you beheld was the interior of a cloister.
Speaker:It was the interior of that severe and gloomy edifice
Speaker:which was called the convent of the Bernardines, of the perpetual
Speaker:adoration. The box in which you stood
Speaker:was the parlor. The first voice which
Speaker:had addressed you was that of the portress who always sat, motionless and
Speaker:silent on the other side of the wall, near the square
Speaker:opening screened by the iron grating in the
Speaker:plate with its thousand holes, as by a double
Speaker:visor. The obscurity which
Speaker:bathed the grated box arose from the fact that the
Speaker:parlor, which had a window on the side of the world,
Speaker:had none on the side of the conventional
Speaker:profane eyes, must see nothing of that sacred
Speaker:place. Nevertheless, there
Speaker:was something beyond that shadow. There
Speaker:was a light. There was life in the midst of
Speaker:that death. Although this was the most
Speaker:strictly walled of all convents, we shall endeavor to make our way
Speaker:into it and to take the reader in and say,
Speaker:without transgressing the proper bounds,
Speaker:things which storytellers have never seen and have
Speaker:therefore never described.
Speaker:Thank you for joining Bite at a time books today while we
Speaker:wrote a bite of one of your favorite classics.
Speaker:Again, my name is Brie Carlisle, and I
Speaker:hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite
Speaker:of Les Miserables.
Speaker:>> Brie Carlisle: Dont forget to sign up for our
Speaker:newsletter@biteadatimebooks.com comma and
Speaker:check out the shop. You can check out the show notes
Speaker:or our website, biteadittimebooks.com,
Speaker:for the rest of the links for our show, wed love
Speaker:to hear from you on social media as well.
Speaker:>> Brie Carlisle: Take a look and a broken let's
Speaker:see what we can find
Speaker:take it chapter by chapter, one
Speaker:night at a time
Speaker:so many adventures and
Speaker:mountains we can climb.
Speaker:>> Brie Carlisle: Line by line, one bite at a time.